Payments platform, method and system for a cloud computing platform

ABSTRACT

A cloud-based computing system is provided that includes a payments platform for integrating payment gateway services with a cloud computing platform so that clients of the cloud computing platform can perform payment transactions with customers via the cloud computing platform. The payment gateways that include a particular payment gateway. The cloud computing platform can include a multitenant database system that provides applications and services to a plurality of clients, and a payments platform module. Each client can be, for example, a tenant or organization of the cloud computing platform that transacts business with one or more customers via a payment gateway. The payments platform module has a pluggable architecture for integrating each of the payment gateway adapters with the cloud computing platform.

TECHNICAL FIELD

Embodiments of the subject matter described herein relate generally tocloud computing platforms, and more particularly, embodiments of thesubject matter relate to a cloud computing platform that includes apayments platform for integrating payment gateway services with thecloud computing platform so that clients of the cloud computing platformcan perform payment transactions with customers via the cloud computingplatform.

BACKGROUND

Today many enterprises now use cloud-based computing platforms thatallow services and data to be accessed over the Internet (or via othernetworks). Infrastructure providers of these cloud-based computingplatforms offer network-based processing systems that often supportmultiple enterprises (or tenants) using common computer hardware anddata storage. “Cloud computing” services provide shared resources,software, and information to computers and other devices upon request.In cloud computing environments, software can be accessible over theInternet rather than installed locally on in-house computer systems.This “cloud” computing model allows applications to be provided over aplatform “as a service” supplied by the infrastructure provider. Theinfrastructure provider typically abstracts the underlying hardware andother resources used to deliver a customer-developed application so thatthe customer no longer needs to operate and support dedicated serverhardware. Cloud computing typically involves over-the-Internet provisionof dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources. Technologicaldetails can be abstracted from the users, who no longer have need forexpertise in, or control over, the technology infrastructure “in thecloud” that supports them. The cloud computing model can often providesubstantial cost savings to the customer over the life of theapplication because the customer no longer needs to provide dedicatednetwork infrastructure, electrical and temperature controls, physicalsecurity and other logistics in support of dedicated server hardware.

Multi-tenant cloud-based architectures have been developed to improvecollaboration, integration, and community-based cooperation betweencustomer tenants without compromising data security. Generally speaking,multi-tenancy refers to a system where a single hardware and softwareplatform simultaneously supports multiple organizations or tenants froma common data storage element (also referred to as a “multi-tenantdatabase”). The multi-tenant design provides a number of advantages overconventional server virtualization systems. First, the multi-tenantplatform operator can often make improvements to the platform based uponcollective information from the entire tenant community. Additionally,because all users in the multi-tenant environment execute applicationswithin a common processing space, it is relatively easy to grant or denyaccess to specific sets of data for any user within the multi-tenantplatform, thereby improving collaboration and integration betweenapplications and the data managed by the various applications. Themulti-tenant architecture therefore allows convenient and cost-effectivesharing of similar application feature software between multiple sets ofusers.

In general, businesses use a customer relationship management (CRM)system (also referred to as a database system or system) to managebusiness relationships and information associated with the businessrelationship. For example, a multi-tenant system may support anon-demand CRM application that manages the data for a particularorganization's sales staff that is maintained by the multi-tenant systemand facilitates collaboration among members of that organization's salesstaff (e.g., account executives, sales representatives, and the like).This data may include customer and prospect contact information,accounts, leads, and opportunities in one central location. Theinformation may be stored in a database as objects. For example, the CRMsystem may include “account” object, “contact” object and“opportunities” object.

In some cases, a cloud computing platform that provides CRM applicationsand services may not provide an out-of-the-box native payment solutionfor its massive client base. Clients can transact business with theircustomers through payment gateways (i.e., process payments fromcustomers through payment gateways).

One drawback of this approach from the perspective of clients (e.g.,vendors, merchants or service providers) of a cloud computing platformis that there are hundreds of application service providers that providethe payment gateway functionality, and each has different APIs. As such,clients may be required to build integrations with each payment gatewaythat they want to utilize, which is extremely time consuming anddifficult to maintain. Another drawback of this approach is that thereis no consistent data model used by the various clients (e.g., tenantsor organizations) of the cloud computing platform. In other words, datamodels are not fixed and standardized among tenants, which can make itdifficult for client to integrate different payment gateways with thecloud computing platform. Furthermore, a client's transaction data maybe spread across many different payment gateways, which can beinconvenient for the client. In addition, there are different types ofpayment gateways with some being synchronous and others beingasynchronous. It can also be difficult for the clients to maintainrecords of business transactions in the multi-tenant database system,and clients may be forced to acquire data for transactions with aparticular customer many different times during the lifecycle of apayment.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

A more complete understanding of the subject matter may be derived byreferring to the detailed description and claims when considered inconjunction with the following figures, wherein like reference numbersrefer to similar elements throughout the figures.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram that illustrates a system in accordance withthe disclosed embodiments.

FIG. 2A is a block diagram that illustrates one example of a paymentsplatform in accordance with the disclosed embodiments.

FIGS. 2B and 2C are collectively one non-limiting set of APIs for anAPEX® interface in accordance with the disclosed embodiments.

FIG. 2D is an example of how a client will implement API for a specificpayment gateway adapter in accordance with the disclosed embodiments.

FIG. 3A is a conceptual diagram that shows various types of paymenttransactions/operations that are supported by the payments platform inaccordance with the disclosed embodiments.

FIG. 3B shows an input payload structure of a request in accordance withthe disclosed embodiments.

FIG. 3C shows an output payload structure of a response in accordancewith the disclosed embodiments.

FIG. 3D is an APEX® input payload structure of a request and an APEX®output payload structure of a response in accordance with the disclosedembodiments.

FIG. 4A is a block diagram that illustrates one example scenario of thepayments platform operating in an external mode in accordance with thedisclosed embodiments.

FIG. 4B is a flowchart that illustrates a method for recording data froman authorization transaction when a payments platform operates in anexternal mode in accordance with the disclosed embodiments.

FIG. 4C is a flowchart that illustrates a method for using priortransaction data that was previously recorded from the authorizationtransaction of FIG. 4B when the payments platform operates in aninternal mode to complete a capture transaction in accordance with thedisclosed embodiments.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart that illustrates a synchronous payment transactiondata flow method between elements of the payments platform, a paymentgateway adapter and a payment gateway in accordance with the disclosedembodiments.

FIG. 6 is a flow diagram that illustrates a synchronous paymenttransaction data flow between a client of the cloud computing platform,the payments platform, a payment gateway adapter and a payment gatewayin accordance with the disclosed embodiments.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart that illustrates a payment transaction data flowmethod between elements of the payments platform, a payment gatewayadapter and a payment gateway in accordance with the disclosedembodiments.

FIG. 8 is a flow diagram that illustrates an asynchronous paymenttransaction data flow between a client of the cloud computing platform,the payments platform, a payment gateway adapter and a payment gatewayin accordance with the disclosed embodiments.

FIG. 9 is a schematic block diagram of an example of a multi-tenantcomputing environment in which features of the disclosed embodiments canbe implemented in accordance with the disclosed embodiments.

FIG. 10 shows a block diagram of an example of an environment in whichan on-demand database service can be used in accordance with someimplementations.

FIG. 11 shows a block diagram of example implementations of elements ofFIG. 10 and example interconnections between these elements according tosome implementations.

FIG. 12 is a block diagram that illustrates a diagrammaticrepresentation of a machine in the exemplary form of a computer systemwithin which a set of instructions, for causing the machine to performany one or more of the methodologies discussed herein, may be executed.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Prior to describing a payments platform for a cloud computing platformin accordance with the disclosed embodiments, a conventional transactionprocess via a payment gateway will be described. When a customer ordersa product from a payment gateway-enabled merchant, the payment gatewayperforms a variety of tasks to process the transaction. A customerplaces an order on website by pressing the ‘Submit Order’ or equivalentbutton, or perhaps enters their card details using an automatic phoneanswering service. If the order is via a website, the customer's webbrowser encrypts the information to be sent between the browser and themerchant's webserver. In between other methods, this may be done via SSL(Secure Socket Layer) encryption. The payment gateway may allowtransaction data to be sent directly from the customer's browser to thegateway, bypassing the merchant's systems. This reduces the merchant'sPayment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) complianceobligations without redirecting the customer away from the website.

The merchant then forwards the transaction details to their paymentgateway. This is another (SSL) encrypted connection to the paymentserver hosted by the payment gateway. The payment gateway converts themessage, for example, from XML to ISO 8583 or a variant message format(format understood by EFT Switches) and then forwards the transactioninformation to the payment processor used by the merchant's acquiringbank.

The payment processor forwards the transaction information to the cardassociation (e.g., Visa, MasterCard, American Express, etc.). When sometypes of card associations are used (e.g., an American Express orDiscover Card), then the card association also acts as the issuing bankand directly provides a response of approved or declined to the paymentgateway. When other types of card associations are used (e.g., aMasterCard or Visa card), the card association routes the transaction tothe correct card issuing bank.

The credit card issuing bank receives the authorization request,verifies the credit or debit available and then sends a response back tothe processor (via the same process as the request for authorization)with a response code (e.g., approved, denied). In addition tocommunicating the fate of the authorization request, the response codeis also used to define the reason why the transaction failed (e.g.,insufficient funds, or bank link not available). Meanwhile, the creditcard issuer holds an authorization associated with that merchant andconsumer for the approved amount. This can impact the consumer's abilityto spend further (e.g., because it reduces the line of credit availableor it puts a hold on a portion of the funds in a debit account). Theprocessor then forwards the authorization response to the paymentgateway.

The payment gateway receives the response, and forwards it onto thewebsite, or whatever interface was used to process the payment, where itis interpreted as a relevant response, then relayed back to the merchantand cardholder. This is known as the authorization or “Auth.” The entireprocess typically takes 2-3 seconds.

The merchant then fulfills the order and the above process can berepeated, but this time to “clear” the authorization by consummating thetransaction. Typically, the “clear” is initiated only after the merchanthas fulfilled the transaction (e.g., shipped the order). This results inthe issuing bank ‘clearing’ the ‘auth’ (e.g., moves auth-hold to adebit) and prepares them to settle with the merchant acquiring bank. Inmany cases, the merchant submits all their approved authorizations in a“batch” (e.g., at the end of the day) to their acquiring bank forsettlement via its processor. This typically reduces or “clears” thecorresponding “auth” if it has not been explicitly “cleared.”

The acquiring bank makes the batch settlement request of the credit cardissuer. The credit card issuer makes a settlement payment to theacquiring bank (e.g., the next day in most cases). The acquiring banksubsequently deposits the total of the approved funds into themerchant's nominated account (e.g., the same day or next day). Thiscould be an account with the acquiring bank if the merchant does theirbanking with the same bank, or an account with another bank. The entireprocess from authorization to settlement to funding typically takes 3days.

It would be desirable to provide a cloud computing platform, thatprovides clients with CRM applications and services, with a nativepayment platform that lets different clouds and client applications(e.g., Order Management System, Ecommerce Storefronts, Salesforce.org,Quotes to Cash, etc.) interact with different payment gateways based oncustomer needs. For example, it would be desirable for the paymentgateways to be able to integrate their services with the cloud computingplatform so that clients can transact business within the cloudcomputing platform.

Having given that background information, the disclosed embodiments canprovide a cloud computing platform that includes a payments platform forintegrating payment gateway services with the cloud computing platformso that clients of the cloud computing platform can perform paymenttransactions with customers via the cloud computing platform.

In one embodiment, a cloud-based computing system is provided. Thecloud-based computing system can include a plurality of payment gatewaysthat include a particular payment gateway, and a cloud computingplatform. Each payment gateway is an application service provider thatprovides a payment gateway adapter configured for different paymentgateway functionality. The payment gateway adapters include a particularpayment gateway adapter provided by the particular payment gateway. Thecloud computing platform can include a multitenant database system and apayments platform module. The multitenant database system isconfigurable to provide applications and services to a plurality ofclients. Each client can be, for example, a tenant or organization ofthe cloud computing platform that transacts business with one or morecustomers via a payment gateway. The payments platform module has apluggable architecture for integrating each of the payment gatewayadapters of the plurality of payment gateways with the cloud computingplatform so that the clients and customers of clients are able toperform payment transactions using the payment gateways via the paymentsplatform module of the cloud computing platform. In one embodiment, thepayment transactions supported by the payments platform module compriseone or more of: an authorization transaction that includes anauthorization request and an authorization response, an authorizationreversal transaction that includes an authorization reversal request andan authorization reversal response, a capture transaction that includesa capture request and a capture response, a sale transaction thatincludes a sale request and a sale response, a void transaction thatincludes a void request and a void response, and a refund transactionthat includes a refund request and a refund response.

In one embodiment, the cloud-based computing system can also include athird-party application exchange configured to store a plurality ofpayment gateway adapters. Each of the payment gateway adapters iscustomized for a particular one of the payment gateways, and ispluggable into the payments platform module so that each of the clientscan selectively integrate which payment gateway adapters to implement.Each of the payment gateway adapters can be written in a customprogramming language of the cloud-based computing platform usingstandardized application programming interfaces provided by the paymentsplatform module of the cloud computing platform such that the paymentgateway adapters are pluggable into payments platform module. Thepayment gateway adapters can be published via the third-partyapplication exchange by their corresponding payment gateway as a managedpackage that is accessible to the clients so that clients canselectively install and instantiate different payment gateway adaptersfor each particular payment gateway that is selected for integration bythat client. Each of the payment gateway adapters are selectable by anyof the clients for integration with the payments platform module toallow the clients to select any of the payment gateways to executepayment transactions with their customers through the payments platformmodule using the particular payment gateways that are selected. Each ofthe payment gateway adapters, when executed by the hardware-basedprocessing system, is configurable to cause: receiving and processingpayment transaction requests from clients by calling a particularpayment gateway adapter specified in each the payment transactionrequest; and processing and returning payment transaction responses thatoriginate from one of the payment gateways.

In one embodiment, the payments platform module exposes: payment gatewayclient application programming interfaces to clients to call from flows,process builders, customer code, wherein the payment gateway clientapplication programming interfaces are a unified set of applicationprogramming interfaces that clients can use to interact with the variousdifferent payment gateways; and payment gateway adapter applicationprogramming interfaces of the payment gateway adapters for each ofpayment gateways. The payment gateway adapter application programminginterfaces are universal for all clients and allow developers of thepayment gateways to build payment gateway adapters such that eachpayment gateway can use the payment gateway client applicationprogramming interfaces to integrate with the payments platform moduleand implement payment gateway adapter application programminginterfaces. The payment gateway adapter application programminginterfaces are written in a custom programming language (e.g., APEX®) ofthe cloud-based computing platform. Each of the clients can use thepayment gateway client application programming interfaces to consume thepayment gateway adapter application programming interfaces. In oneembodiment, the payments platform module includes a payment gatewayintegration layer that allows the payments platform module to interactwith the payment gateways by exposing payment gateway adapterapplication programming interfaces to interact with each of the paymentgateways. The payment gateway adapter application programming interfacesserve as bridge for interaction between the payment gateway integrationlayer and the payment gateway adapters. The payment gateway integrationlayer coordinates calls between the payments platform module and thepayment gateways, and when executed by the hardware-based processingsystem, is configurable to cause receiving and processing paymenttransaction requests from clients by calling a particular paymentgateway adapter specified in each the payment transaction request,wherein each payment transaction request comprises information regardingwhich payment gateway adapter to use so that payments platform moduleknows which payment gateway adapter to call and invoke; and processingand returning payment transaction responses that have been translated byand forwarded from the payment gateway adapters, wherein the paymenttransaction responses originate from one of the payment gateways.

In one embodiment, the payment gateway integration layer, when executedby the hardware-based processing system, is configurable to cause:initializing and loading, based on a configuration specified in apayment transaction request, a specific environment for the particularpayment gateway adapter; converting the payment transaction request to aspecific format for the particular payment gateway adapter; calling andexecuting the particular payment gateway adapter; receiving andconverting a payment transaction response that is specific to theparticular payment gateway into a gateway payment transaction responsethat is specific to the payments platform module; and returning thegateway payment transaction response.

In one embodiment, the payments platform module, when executed by thehardware-based processing system, is configurable to cause: executingthe particular payment gateway adapter that has been selected by aparticular client to implement a set of payment gateway adapterapplication programming interfaces so that application programminginterfaces of the particular payment gateway can be translated into thepayment gateway client application programming interfaces the cloudcomputing platform, wherein the particular payment gateway adaptertranslates application programming interfaces of a particular paymentgateway into the application programming interfaces of the cloudcomputing platform so that they are compatible.

In one embodiment, a cloud-based computing system is provided thatincludes a multitenant database system that hosts a plurality of clientsthat each transact business with one or more customers via a paymentgateway. The cloud-based computing system comprises at least onehardware-based processor and memory. The memory comprisesprocessor-executable instructions encoded on a non-transientprocessor-readable media. The processor-executable instructions, whenexecuted by the processor, are configurable to cause: selecting aparticular payment gateway adapter for a particular payment gateway,wherein the particular payment gateway is one of a plurality of paymentgateways, wherein each payment gateway is an application serviceprovider that provides a payment gateway adapter configured fordifferent payment gateway functionality; and executing, at a paymentsplatform module of a cloud computing platform, particular paymentgateway adapter so that a client and one or more customers of client areable to perform payment transactions using the particular paymentgateway via the payments platform of the cloud computing platform.

In one embodiment, the processor-executable instructions, when executedby the processor, are further configurable to cause: storing, at athird-party application exchange, a plurality of payment gatewayadapters each being customized for a particular one of the paymentgateways, wherein each of the payment gateway adapters are pluggableinto the payments platform module so that each of the clients canselectively integrate which payment gateway adapters to implement,wherein the payment gateway adapters include the particular paymentgateway adapter, and wherein the payments platform module has apluggable architecture for integrating each of the payment gatewayadapters with the cloud computing platform so that the clients andcustomers of clients are able to perform payment transactions using thepayment gateways via the payments platform.

In one embodiment, the cloud-based computing system according to claim14, wherein the payment gateway adapters are published via thethird-party application exchange by their corresponding payment gatewayas a managed package that is accessible to the clients so that clientscan selectively install and instantiate different payment gatewayadapters for each particular payment gateway that is selected forintegration by that client, and wherein each of the payment gatewayadapters is written in a custom programming language of the cloud-basedcomputing platform using standardized application programming interfacesprovided by the payments platform module of the cloud computing platformsuch that the payment gateway adapters are pluggable into paymentsplatform module.

In one embodiment, the payments platform module exposes: payment gatewayclient application programming interfaces to clients to call from flows,process builders, customer code, wherein the payment gateway clientapplication programming interfaces are a unified set of applicationprogramming interfaces that clients can use to interact with the variousdifferent payment gateways; and payment gateway adapter applicationprogramming interfaces of the payment gateway adapters for each ofpayment gateways, wherein the payment gateway adapter applicationprogramming interfaces are universal for all clients and allowdevelopers of the payment gateways to build payment gateway adapterssuch that each payment gateway can use the payment gateway clientapplication programming interfaces to integrate with the paymentsplatform module and implement payment gateway adapter applicationprogramming interfaces. The payment gateway adapter applicationprogramming interfaces are written in a custom programming language ofthe cloud-based computing platform. Each of the clients can use thepayment gateway client application programming interfaces to consume thepayment gateway adapter application programming interfaces. The paymentsplatform module can also include a payment gateway integration layerthat allows the payments platform module to interact with the paymentgateways by exposing payment gateway adapter application programminginterfaces to interact with each of the payment gateways, wherein thepayment gateway adapter application programming interfaces serve asbridge for interaction between the payment gateway integration layer andthe payment gateway adapters.

Each of the payment gateway adapters are selectable by any of theclients for integration with the payments platform module to allow theclients to select any of the payment gateways to execute paymenttransactions with their customers through the payments platform moduleusing the particular payment gateways that are selected. Theprocessor-executable instructions, when executed by the processor, arefurther configurable to cause: receiving and processing paymenttransaction requests from clients by calling a particular paymentgateway adapter specified in each the payment transaction request; andprocessing and returning payment transaction responses that originatefrom one of the payment gateways.

In one embodiment, the payment gateway integration layer coordinatescalls between the payments platform module and the payment gateways. Thepayment gateway integration layer, when executed by the hardware-basedprocessing system, is configurable to cause: receiving and processingpayment transaction requests from clients by calling a particularpayment gateway adapter specified in each the payment transactionrequest, wherein each payment transaction request comprises informationregarding which payment gateway adapter to use so that payments platformmodule knows which payment gateway adapter to call and invoke; andprocessing and returning payment transaction responses that have beentranslated by and forwarded from the payment gateway adapters, whereinthe payment transaction responses originate from one of the paymentgateways.

In one embodiment, the payment gateway integration layer, when executedby the hardware-based processing system, is configurable to cause:initializing and loading, based on a configuration specified in apayment transaction request, a specific environment for the particularpayment gateway adapter; converting the payment transaction request to aspecific format for the particular payment gateway adapter; calling andexecuting the particular payment gateway adapter; receiving andconverting a payment transaction response that is specific to theparticular payment gateway into a gateway payment transaction responsethat is specific to the payments platform; and returning the gatewaypayment transaction response.

In one embodiment, the payments platform module, when executed by thehardware-based processing system, is configurable to cause: executingthe particular payment gateway adapter that has been selected by aparticular client to implement a set of payment gateway adapterapplication programming interfaces so that application programminginterfaces of the particular payment gateway can be translated into thepayment gateway client application programming interfaces the cloudcomputing platform, wherein the particular payment gateway adaptertranslates application programming interfaces of a particular paymentgateway into the application programming interfaces of the cloudcomputing platform so that they are compatible.

In one embodiment, a payment transaction method is provided forintegrating payment gateways with a cloud computing platform so thatclients of the cloud computing platform can perform payment transactionswith customers using the payment gateways via the cloud computingplatform. The payment transaction method comprises: receiving, at apayments platform, a payment request from a particular client of theclients of the cloud computing platform; initializing and calling aparticular payment gateway adapter of a plurality of payment gatewayadapters to send the payment request to the particular payment gatewayadapter, wherein the particular payment gateway adapter corresponds to aparticular payment gateway of a plurality of payment gateways;transforming, at the particular payment gateway adapter, the paymentrequest into a gateway specific format of the particular payment gatewayto generate a transformed payment request; performing internalprocessing at the payments platform and calling the payment gateway viathe particular payment gateway adapter to send the transformed paymentrequest to the payment gateway; receiving the transformed paymentrequest at the particular payment gateway; processing the transformedpayment request at the particular payment gateway to generate an actualpayment response and sending the actual payment response from theparticular payment gateway to the payments platform; forwarding theactual payment response from the payments platform to the particularpayment gateway adapter; transforming, at the particular payment gatewayadapter, the actual payment response into a specific format used by thepayments platform to generate a transformed payment response; andsending the transformed payment response from the payment gatewayadapter to the payments platform; and persisting, via the paymentsplatform, data from the transformed payment response in a payment recordat a database system of the cloud computing platform, wherein the datais persisted in a pending state.

In one embodiment, after persisting the data, the method can includesending an appropriate response to the particular client from thepayments platform that includes an indication of whether the transformedpayment response was successful or unsuccessful. In one embodiment,prior to initializing and calling the particular payment gatewayadapter, the method can include validating the payment request at thepayments platform to determine whether the payment request is valid.

In one embodiment when the payments platform determines that the paymentrequest is valid, the method can include validating, at a paymentgateway integration layer, a specific configuration of the particularpayment gateway to determine whether the specific configuration isvalid. In this case, the particular payment gateway adapter isinitialized and called when the payment gateway integration layerdetermines that the specific configuration of the particular paymentgateway is valid.

In one embodiment, when the payments platform determines that thepayment request is not valid, or when the payment gateway integrationlayer determines that the specific configuration of the particularpayment gateway is not valid, the method can include generating, at thepayments platform, an appropriate error response; and sending theappropriate error response to the particular client, wherein theappropriate error response indicates either: why the payment request wasnot valid or why the specific configuration of the payment gateway wasnot valid. In one embodiment, the method can include validating, at theparticular payment gateway adapter, request data from the paymentrequest to determine whether the request data is valid. In this case,the particular payment gateway adapter transforms the payment requestinto the gateway specific format of the particular payment gateway whenthe particular payment gateway adapter determines that the request datafrom the payment request is valid.

In one embodiment, when the particular payment gateway adapterdetermines that the request data from the payment request is not valid,the method can include sending, from the particular payment gatewayadapter to the payments platform, a response that indicates that therequest data from the payment request is not valid; determining at thepayments platform whether a gateway call was successful; and sending anappropriate response to the particular client from the payments platformthat includes an indication of that the transformed payment response wassuccessful or unsuccessful. In one embodiment, the method can includegenerating, at the payments platform when the gateway call wasdetermined to be unsuccessful, an appropriate error response; andsending the appropriate error response to the particular client, whereinthe appropriate error response indicates why the gateway call was notsuccessful. In one embodiment, after sending the transformed paymentrequest to the payments platform, the method can include creating, atthe payments platform, a payment gateway log record that comprises:gateway log details including data from the transformed payment requestand a payment gateway ID.

In one embodiment, after receiving the transformed payment response atthe payments platform, the method can include evaluating the transformedpayment response at the payments platform to determine whether thetransformed payment response was successful or unsuccessful; creating apayment record having a status of processed when the transformed paymentresponse was determined to be successful; and responding back to theclient with at least gateway log details and payment record details. Inone embodiment, the payment record includes financial details related toa payment, comprising: an amount of the payment, details regarding apayment method, payment type, transaction date, and an identifier forthe particular payment gateway that was used to make the payment. In oneembodiment, the particular payment gateway is a particular synchronouspayment gateway that processes the payment request synchronously by:processing the request to generate the actual payment response and thensending the actual payment response to the payments platform during thesame interaction such that the actual payment response is deterministic.In one embodiment, a system is provided that includes at least onehardware-based processor and memory. The memory comprisesprocessor-executable instructions encoded on a non-transientprocessor-readable media. The processor-executable instructions, whenexecuted by the at least one hardware-based processor, are configurableto cause: receiving, at a payments platform, a payment request from aparticular client of a plurality of clients of a cloud computingplatform; initializing and calling a particular payment gateway adapterof a plurality of payment gateway adapters to send the payment requestto the particular payment gateway adapter, wherein the particularpayment gateway adapter corresponds to a particular payment gateway of aplurality of payment gateways; transforming, at the particular paymentgateway adapter, the payment request into a gateway specific format ofthe particular payment gateway to generate a transformed paymentrequest; performing internal processing at the payments platform andcalling the payment gateway via the particular payment gateway adapterto send the transformed payment request to the payment gateway;receiving the transformed payment request at the particular paymentgateway; processing the transformed payment request at the particularpayment gateway to generate an actual payment response and sending theactual payment response from the particular payment gateway to thepayments platform; forwarding the actual payment response from thepayments platform to the particular payment gateway adapter;transforming, at the particular payment gateway adapter, the actualpayment response into a specific format used by the payments platform togenerate a transformed payment response; and sending the transformedpayment response from the payment gateway adapter to the paymentsplatform; and persisting, via the payments platform, data from thetransformed payment response in a payment record at a database system ofthe cloud computing platform.

In one embodiment, the processor-executable instructions, when executedby the at least one hardware-based processor, are further configurableto cause: validating, at the particular payment gateway adapter, requestdata from the payment request to determine whether the request data isvalid. In this embodiment, the particular payment gateway adapter cantransform the payment request into the gateway specific format of theparticular payment gateway when the particular payment gateway adapterdetermines that the request data from the payment request is valid. Whenthe particular payment gateway adapter determines that the request datafrom the payment request is not valid: the particular payment gatewayadapter can send the payments platform, a response that indicates thatthe request data from the payment request is not valid, and the paymentsplatform can determine whether a gateway call was successful. Thepayments platform can send an appropriate response to the particularclient that includes an indication of that the transformed paymentresponse was successful or unsuccessful. The payment record can includefinancial details related to a payment, comprising: an amount of thepayment, details regarding a payment method, payment type, transactiondate, and an identifier for the particular payment gateway that was usedto make the payment. In this embodiment, the particular payment gatewayis a particular synchronous payment gateway that processes the paymentrequest synchronously by: processing the request to generate the actualpayment response and then sending the actual payment response to thepayments platform during the same interaction such that the actualpayment response is deterministic.

In one embodiment, a cloud-based computing system is provided thatincludes a plurality of payment gateways comprising a particular paymentgateway, and a cloud computing platform. The cloud computing platformcan include a multitenant database system that is configurable toprovide applications and services to a plurality of clients, whereineach client is a tenant or organization of the cloud computing platform;and a payments platform for integrating the payment gateways with thecloud computing platform so that the clients can perform paymenttransactions with customers using the payment gateways via the cloudcomputing platform. The payments platform, when executed by a firsthardware-based processing system, is configurable to cause: receiving apayment request from a particular client of the plurality of clients;initializing and calling a particular payment gateway adapter of aplurality of payment gateway adapters to send the payment request to theparticular payment gateway adapter, wherein the particular paymentgateway adapter corresponds to a particular payment gateway of aplurality of payment gateways; transforming, at the particular paymentgateway adapter, the payment request into a gateway specific format ofthe particular payment gateway to generate a transformed paymentrequest; and performing internal processing at the payments platform andcalling the payment gateway via the particular payment gateway adapterto send the transformed payment request to the payment gateway. Theparticular payment gateway, when executed by a second hardware-basedprocessing system, is configurable to cause receiving the transformedpayment request; processing the transformed payment request to generatean actual payment response and sending the actual payment response tothe payments platform. The payments platform, when executed by the firsthardware-based processing system, is further configurable to cause:forwarding the actual payment response to the particular payment gatewayadapter; transforming, at the particular payment gateway adapter, theactual payment response into a specific format used by the paymentsplatform to generate a transformed payment response; and sending thetransformed payment response from the payment gateway adapter to thepayments platform; and persisting data from the transformed paymentresponse in a payment record at the multitenant database system of thecloud computing platform. In one embodiment, the particular paymentgateway is a particular synchronous payment gateway that processes thepayment request synchronously by: processing the request to generate theactual payment response and then sending the actual payment response tothe payments platform during the same interaction such that the actualpayment response is deterministic.

In one embodiment, a payment transaction method is provided forintegrating payment gateways with a cloud computing platform so thatclients of the cloud computing platform can perform payment transactionswith customers using the payment gateways via the cloud computingplatform. The payment transaction method can include receiving, at apayments platform, a payment request from a particular client of theclients of the cloud computing platform; initializing and calling aparticular payment gateway adapter of a plurality of payment gatewayadapters to send the payment request to the particular payment gatewayadapter, wherein the particular payment gateway adapter corresponds to aparticular payment gateway of a plurality of payment gateways;transforming, at the particular payment gateway adapter, the paymentrequest into a gateway specific format of the particular payment gatewayto generate a transformed payment request; performing internalprocessing at the payments platform and calling the payment gateway viathe particular payment gateway adapter to send the transformed paymentrequest to the payment gateway; receiving the transformed paymentrequest at the particular payment gateway in a first interaction;sending an acknowledgement response from the particular payment gatewayto the particular payment gateway adapter, wherein the acknowledgementresponse indicates that the transformed payment request has beenreceived; and forwarding the acknowledgement response to the paymentsplatform. After a delay period: he transformed payment request can beprocessed at the particular payment gateway to generate an actualpayment response. The actual payment response can be sent from theparticular payment gateway to the payments platform; forwarding theactual payment response from the payments platform to the particularpayment gateway adapter. The actual payment response is sent in adifferent interaction than the first interaction. The particular paymentgateway adapter can transform the actual payment response into aspecific format used by the payments platform to generate a transformedpayment response. The transformed payment response from the paymentgateway adapter can be sent to the payments platform. Based on thetransformed payment response, the payments platform can determine thatthe particular payment gateway is an asynchronous payment gateway. Thepayments platform can persist data from the transformed payment responsein a payment record at a database system of the cloud computingplatform. The data is persisted in a pending state in which theparticular payment gateway has acknowledged the transformed paymentrequest without determining whether payment was successful. In oneembodiment, after persisting the data: the method can include sending anappropriate response to the particular client indirectly from thepayments platform that includes an indication of whether the transformedpayment response was successful or unsuccessful. In one embodiment,prior to initializing and calling the particular payment gatewayadapter: the method can include validating the payment request at thepayments platform to determine whether the payment request is valid.

In one embodiment, when the payments platform determines that thepayment request is valid, the method can include validating, at apayment gateway integration layer, a specific configuration of theparticular payment gateway to determine whether the specificconfiguration is valid. In this embodiment, the particular paymentgateway adapter can be initialized and called when the payment gatewayintegration layer determines that the specific configuration of theparticular payment gateway is valid. In one embodiment, when thepayments platform determines that the payment request is not valid, orwhen the payment gateway integration layer determines that the specificconfiguration of the particular payment gateway is not valid, the methodcan include generating, at the payments platform, an appropriate errorresponse; and sending the appropriate error response to the particularclient, wherein the appropriate error response indicates either: why thepayment request was not valid or why the specific configuration of thepayment gateway was not valid.

In one embodiment, the method can include validating, at the particularpayment gateway adapter, request data from the payment request todetermine whether the request data is valid. In this embodiment, theparticular payment gateway adapter can transform the payment requestinto the gateway specific format of the particular payment gateway whenthe particular payment gateway adapter determines that the request datafrom the payment request is valid. In one embodiment, when theparticular payment gateway adapter determines that the request data fromthe payment request is not valid: the method can include sending, fromthe particular payment gateway adapter to the payments platform, aresponse that indicates that the request data from the payment requestis not valid; determining at the payments platform, based on thetransformed payment response, that the particular payment gateway is asynchronous payment gateway; determining at the payments platformwhether a gateway call was successful; updating, via the paymentsplatform, a pending state to processed when the payments platformdetermines that the gateway call was successful; and sending anappropriate response indirectly to the particular client from thepayments platform that includes an indication of that the transformedpayment response was successful or unsuccessful. In one embodiment, themethod can include updating, via the payments platform, a pending stateto failed when the payments platform determines that the gateway callwas not successful; generating, at the payments platform, an appropriateerror response; and sending the appropriate error response to theparticular client, wherein the appropriate error response indicates whythe gateway call was not successful. In one embodiment, after sendingthe transformed payment request to the payments platform, the method caninclude creating, at the payments platform, a payment gateway log recordthat comprises: data from the transformed payment request and a paymentgateway ID.

In one embodiment, after processing the transformed payment request atthe particular payment gateway to generate the actual payment response,the method can include calling back, from the payment gateway, to anendpoint at the particular payment gateway adapter; calling, via thepayment gateway adapter, a recording API from the payments platform toprocess the actual payment response received from the particular paymentgateway; and creating, at the payments platform, a new payment gatewaylog record that will be linked back to the payment gateway log record,wherein the new payment gateway log record comprises: a cleansed requestresponse string, normalized data, and various reference codes to trackthe payment from the particular payment gateway to an issuing bank.

In one embodiment, after receiving the transformed payment response atthe payments platform. the method can include evaluating the transformedpayment response at the payments platform to determine whether thetransformed payment response was successful or unsuccessful; updating apayment record and a status of the payment record, wherein the updatingis based on whether the transformed payment response was determined tobe successful or unsuccessful; and publishing an event notification,wherein the event notification that is published is based on whether thetransformed payment response was determined to be successful orunsuccessful.

In one embodiment, at run-time, the payments platform does not haveconfiguration information that indicates whether the particular paymentgateway is synchronous or asynchronous. The payments platform processesthe transformed payment response from the particular payment gatewayadapter, during run-time, to determine if the particular payment gatewayis synchronous or asynchronous. In one embodiment, the particularpayment gateway is asynchronous payment gateway that processes thepayment request asynchronously such that the actual payment response isnot deterministic, and sends the actual payment response to the paymentsplatform during another separate interaction that is different than thefirst interaction. The delay period is between the particular paymentgateway receiving the payment request in the first interaction.

In one embodiment, a system is provided comprising at least onehardware-based processor and memory. The memory comprisesprocessor-executable instructions encoded on a non-transientprocessor-readable media. The processor-executable instructions, whenexecuted by the at least one hardware-based processor, are configurableto cause: receiving, at a payments platform, a payment request from aparticular client of a plurality of clients of a cloud computingplatform; initializing and calling a particular payment gateway adapterof a plurality of payment gateway adapters to send the payment requestto the particular payment gateway adapter, wherein the particularpayment gateway adapter corresponds to a particular payment gateway of aplurality of payment gateways; transforming, at the particular paymentgateway adapter, the payment request into a gateway specific format ofthe particular payment gateway to generate a transformed paymentrequest; performing internal processing at the payments platform andcalling the payment gateway via the particular payment gateway adapterto send the transformed payment request to the payment gateway;receiving the transformed payment request at the particular paymentgateway in a first interaction; sending an acknowledgement response fromthe payment gateway to the particular payment gateway adapter, whereinthe acknowledgement response indicates that the transformed paymentrequest has been received; and forwarding the acknowledgement responseto the payments platform. After a delay period: the particular paymentgateway can process the transformed payment request to generate anactual payment response and sending the actual payment response from theparticular payment gateway to the payments platform, and forward theactual payment response from the payments platform to the particularpayment gateway adapter. The actual payment response is sent in adifferent interaction than the first interaction. The particular paymentgateway adapter can transform the actual payment response into aspecific format used by the payments platform to generate a transformedpayment response, and send the transformed payment response from thepayment gateway adapter to the payments platform. The payments platformcan determine, based on the transformed payment response, that theparticular payment gateway is an asynchronous payment gateway. Thepayments platform can persist data from the transformed payment responsein a payment record at a database system of the cloud computingplatform. The data is persisted in a pending state in which theparticular payment gateway has acknowledged the transformed paymentrequest without determining whether payment was successful.

The processor-executable instructions, when executed by the at least onehardware-based processor, are further configurable to cause: validating,at the particular payment gateway adapter, request data from the paymentrequest to determine whether the request data is valid. In thisembodiment, the particular payment gateway adapter transforms thepayment request into the gateway specific format of the particularpayment gateway when the particular payment gateway adapter determinesthat the request data from the payment request is valid. When theparticular payment gateway adapter determines that the request data fromthe payment request is not valid, the particular payment gateway adaptercan send the payments platform a response that indicates that therequest data from the payment request is not valid.

Based on the transformed payment response, the payments platform candetermine that the particular payment gateway is a synchronous paymentgateway. The payments platform can determine whether a gateway call wassuccessful, and if so, can update a pending state to processed when thepayments platform determines that the gateway call was successful, andsend an appropriate response to the particular client from the paymentsplatform that includes an indication that the transformed paymentresponse was successful or unsuccessful.

In one embodiment, at run-time, the payments platform does not haveconfiguration information that indicates whether the particular paymentgateway is synchronous or asynchronous. In this embodiment, the paymentsplatform processes the transformed payment response from the particularpayment gateway adapter, during run-time, to determine if the particularpayment gateway is synchronous or asynchronous. When the particularpayment gateway is asynchronous payment gateway, it processes thepayment request asynchronously such that the actual payment response isnot deterministic. The delay period is between the particular paymentgateway receiving the payment request in the first interaction and thensending the actual payment response to the payments platform duringanother separate interaction that is different than the firstinteraction.

In one embodiment, a cloud-based computing system is provided that hostsa plurality of clients. The cloud-based computing system includes aplurality of payment gateways comprising a particular payment gateway,and a cloud computing platform. The cloud computing platform includes amultitenant database system that is configurable to provide applicationsand services to the plurality of clients, and a payments platform forintegrating the payment gateways with the cloud computing platform sothat the clients can perform payment transactions with customers usingthe payment gateways via the cloud computing platform. The paymentsplatform, when executed by a first hardware-based processing system, isconfigurable to cause: receiving a payment request from a particularclient of the plurality of clients; initializing and calling aparticular payment gateway adapter of a plurality of payment gatewayadapters to send the payment request to the particular payment gatewayadapter, wherein the particular payment gateway adapter corresponds to aparticular payment gateway of a plurality of payment gateways;transforming, at the particular payment gateway adapter, the paymentrequest into a gateway specific format of the particular payment gatewayto generate a transformed payment request; performing internalprocessing at the payments platform and calling the payment gateway viathe particular payment gateway adapter to send the transformed paymentrequest to the payment gateway. The particular payment gateway, whenexecuted by a second hardware-based processing system, is configurableto cause: receiving the transformed payment request in a firstinteraction; sending an acknowledgement response to the particularpayment gateway adapter, wherein the acknowledgement response indicatesthat the transformed payment request has been received; and after adelay period, processing the transformed payment request at theparticular payment gateway to generate an actual payment response andsending the actual payment response from the particular payment gatewayto the payments platform; forwarding the actual payment response fromthe payments platform to the particular payment gateway adapter, whereinthe actual payment response is sent in a different interaction than thefirst interaction. The payments platform, when executed by the firsthardware-based processing system, is further configurable to cause:transforming, at the particular payment gateway adapter, the actualpayment response into a specific format used by the payments platform togenerate a transformed payment response; and sending the transformedpayment response from the payment gateway adapter to the paymentsplatform; determining, based on the transformed payment response, thatthe particular payment gateway is an asynchronous payment gateway; andpersisting data from the transformed payment response in a paymentrecord at the multitenant database system of the cloud computingplatform. The data is persisted in a pending state in which theparticular payment gateway has acknowledged the transformed paymentrequest without determining whether payment was successful.

In one embodiment, at run-time, the payments platform does not haveconfiguration information that indicates whether the particular paymentgateway is synchronous or asynchronous. The payments platform processesthe transformed payment response from the particular payment gatewayadapter, during run-time, to determine if the particular payment gatewayis synchronous or asynchronous. In one embodiment, the particularpayment gateway is asynchronous payment gateway that processes thepayment request asynchronously such that the actual payment response isnot deterministic. The delay period is between the particular paymentgateway receiving the payment request in the first interaction and thensending the actual payment response to the payments platform duringanother separate interaction that is different than the firstinteraction.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram that illustrates a cloud-based computingsystem 100 in accordance with the disclosed embodiments. The cloud-basedcomputing system 100 includes a cloud computing platform 102 (e.g.,Salesforce.com), which is part of the cloud-based computing system 100but may also be referred to as a cloud-based computing system, paymentgateways (PGs) 140, customers 150, and a third-party applicationexchange 160. The cloud computing platform 102 includes clients 110 of apayments platform (PP) 126 and a multi-tenant database system 120. Themulti-tenant database system 120 includes a database system 122, amessaging system 124, and a payments platform 126. The payments platform126 can also be referred to herein as a payments platform module 126.Although it is illustrated as being part of the multi-tenant databasesystem 120 in this embodiment, it should be appreciated that thepayments platform 126 can also be implemented within the cloud computingplatform 102 separately from the multi-tenant database system 120. Aswill be explained in greater detail below, the system 100 is looselycoupled and provides pluggable architecture that allows numerous paymentgateways 140-1 . . . 140-N to create their own payment gateway adapters130-1 . . . 130-N, publish the payment gateway adapters 130-1 . . .130-N at the third-party application exchange 160, and plug theirrespective payment gateway adapters 130-1 . . . 130-N into the paymentsplatform 126. Clients 110 can then choose which payment gateway adapters130-1 . . . 130-N they want to implement.

The clients 110 can include any number of clients 110-1 through 110-N,where N is any number greater than or equal to 2. Each of the clients110 can be an organization or tenant of the cloud computing platform 102that is transacting business with customers 150. Organizations andtenants are described in greater detail below with reference to FIGS. 9through 12. The clients 110 can be, for example, vendors of products,goods or services who want to transact business with the customers 150by selling them their products, goods or services. Customers 150 canmake payments to clients 110 using common payment methods such as creditcards, direct debit cards, gift cards (e.g., based on money orcurrency), rewards cards (e.g., based on points), Automated ClearingHouse (ACH) payments, digital wallets, mobile wallets, etc., as wellcustom payment methods.

Examples of database systems in accordance with the disclosedembodiments will be described below with reference to FIGS. 9-12. Amongother things, the database system 122 can store data from variouspayment transactions as records. How this data is passed into thedatabase system 122 depends on the processing mode that the paymentsplatform 126 is operating in. As will be described in greater detailbelow with reference to FIGS. 4A through 4C, the payments platform 126can support two different processing modes that will be referred toherein as “external mode” and “internal mode” or “Salesforce® mode.” Theexternal processing mode (also referred to herein as “external mode”)will be described with reference to FIGS. 4A and 4B, while the internalprocessing mode (also referred to herein as “internal mode” or“Salesforce® mode”) will be described with reference to FIG. 4C.

In one embodiment, the messaging system 124 can be a communicationsplatform as a service (CPaaS). A communications platform as a service(CPaaS) is a cloud-based delivery model that allows organizations to addreal-time communication capabilities, such as voice, video andmessaging, to business applications by deploying application programinterfaces (APIs). The communication capabilities delivered by APIs caninclude Short Message Service (SMS), Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS),telephony and video. Communication services can be embedded intobusiness applications, such as sales software, to add features such asnotifications, click-to-call and multifactor authentication. In otherwords, CPaaS can be deployed by organizations that want to embedcommunications in their business applications, as well as cloud serviceproviders and developers looking to add communications capabilities totheir applications and services. The platforms include standards-basedAPIs, comprehensive software developer's kits, and APEX®, JAVA® or otherlibraries for building applications on various platforms.

APEX® is a proprietary language developed by Salesforce.com® that allowsclients 110 of Salesforce.com® clients to deliver additionalfunctionality on top of Salesforce.com® platform. APEX® is a stronglytyped, object-oriented programming language that allows developers toexecute flow and transaction control statements on Salesforce® serversin conjunction with calls to the API. Using syntax that looks like JAVA®and acts like database stored procedures, APEX® enables developers toadd business logic to most system events, including button clicks,related record updates, and Visualforce pages. APEX® code can beinitiated by Web service requests and from triggers on objects. APEX®provides built-in support for common Lightning® Platform idioms,including: data manipulation language (DML) calls, such as INSERT,UPDATE, and DELETE, that include built-in DmlException handling; inlineSalesforce Object Query Language (SOQL) and Salesforce Object SearchLanguage (SOSL) queries that return lists of sObject records; loopingthat allows for bulk processing of multiple records at a time; lockingsyntax that prevents record update conflicts; custom public API callsthat can be built from stored APEX® methods; warnings and errors issuedwhen a user tries to edit or delete a custom object or field that isreferenced by APEX®. APEX® is based on familiar JAVA® idioms, such asvariable and expression syntax, block and conditional statement syntax,loop syntax, object and array notation. Where APEX® introduces newelements, it uses syntax and semantics that are easy to understand andencourage efficient use of the Lightning Platform. Therefore, APEX®produces code that is both succinct and easy to write. APEX® is designedto thread together multiple query and DML statements into a single unitof work on the Salesforce server. Developers use database storedprocedures to thread together multiple transaction statements on adatabase server in a similar way. Like other database stored procedures,APEX® does not attempt to provide general support for rendering elementsin the user interface. APEX® is a strongly typed language in that ituses direct references to schema objects such as object and field names.It fails quickly at compile time if any references are invalid. Itstores all custom field, object, and class dependencies in metadata toensure that they are not deleted while required by active APEX® code.APEX® can be interpreted, executed, and controlled entirely by theLightning Platform. Like the rest of the Lightning® Platform, APEX® runsin a multitenant environment. So, the APEX® runtime engine is designedto guard closely against runaway code, preventing it from monopolizingshared resources. Any code that violates limits fails witheasy-to-understand error messages. APEX® provides built-in support forunit test creation and execution. It includes test results that indicatehow much code is covered, and which parts of your code could be moreefficient. Salesforce ensures that all custom APEX® code works asexpected by executing all unit tests prior to any platform upgrades.APEX® code can be saved against different versions of the API.

The payments platform 126 can seamlessly provide an out of the boxintegration with hundreds or even thousands of payment gateways 130 byexposing an APEX® payment gateway adapter API 216 that is provided bythe cloud computing platform 102. The payments platform 126 provides asingle unified flavor of standard APIs like (authorization,authorization reversal, capture, sale, void, refund, etc.) over allpayment gateways 140-1 . . . 140-N thus abstracting the compleximplementation details of how they are exposed via different APIsignatures of different payment gateway 140-1 . . . 140-N providers likePAYPAL®, STRIPE®, CYBERSOURCE®, ADVEN®, WORLDPAY®, SECUREPAY. COMO,AUTHORIZE.NET®, 2CHECKOUT.COM®, AMAZON PAYMENTS®, FIRST DATACORPORATION®, BLUEPAY PROCESSING LLC, PAYSIMPLE®, FASTCHARGE.COM®,PAYNOVA®, CHRONOPAY®, SQUARE®, etc.

This can allow any one of the clients 110 to transact business throughthe payments platform 126 with one or more of their customers using anypayment gateway 140. The payments platform 126 will be described ingreater detail with reference to FIGS. 2 through 8.

The payment gateway service providers 140 (also referred to hereinsimply as “payment gateways”) can include a plurality of paymentgateways 140-1 through 140-N, where N is any number greater than orequal to 1. For example, there are hundreds or even thousands ofapplication service providers that provide different payment gatewayfunctionality.

As used herein, the term “payment gateway” can refer a merchant serviceprovided by an e-commerce application service provider that authorizescredit card or direct payments processing for e-businesses, onlineretailers, bricks and clicks, or traditional brick and mortar. Thepayment gateway may be provided by a bank to its client, but can be alsoprovided as a separate service by a specialized financial serviceprovider, such as a payment service provider. A payment gatewayfacilitates a payment transaction by the transfer of information betweena payment portal (such as a website, mobile phone or interactive voiceresponse service) and the front-end processor or acquiring bank. Apayment gateway can, for example, facilitate communication between banksand help a merchant collect payments from a purchaser. It should benoted that a payment gateway differs from a payments processor in that apayment gateway is an intermediary between an online vendor and apayment processor that validates and then shares a transaction requestto the payment processor, whereas a payment processor processes thepayment request from the payment gateway and executes it (e.g., debitsthe money from the customer account and deposits it in a merchantaccount and then notifies the payment gateway about the transactionstatus (success or failed)).

Although not illustrated, the customers 150 can include any number ofcustomers who transact business with clients 110 of the paymentsplatform 126. In accordance with the disclosed embodiments, any one ofthe customers can transact business with one or more of the clients 110through the payment gateways 140-1 through 140-N and/or the paymentsplatform 126. The customers can be, for example, purchasers of goods orservices that are offered for sale by the client 110. As shown in FIG.1, the payment gateway 140 and customers 150 are entities that are inthe public domain outside the cloud computing platform 102. Depending onthe particular implementation, the third-party application exchange 160can also be an entity that is in the public domain, or in thealternative, can be an entity that is part of the cloud computingplatform 102.

As shown in FIG. 1, the third-party application exchange 160 is anonline, cloud-based, enterprise application marketplace in whichapplications and components are customized for the cloud computingplatform 102. Applications can be written in APEX® programming language.The third-party application exchange 160 can allow providers for eachpayment gateway 140-1 . . . 140-N to use a standardized APEX® APIs(provided by the payments platform 126 of the cloud computing platform102) to write their own managed package code for a payment gatewayadapter for their payment gateway in APEX®. This way, the paymentgateways 140-1 . . . 140-N can use the APEX® payment APIs to write theirmanaged package code to plug into payment platform. Each payment gateway140-1 through 140-N can create or build a payment gateway adapter (PGA)130 for that payment gateway. Thus, each instance of payment gatewayadapter 130 is built by one of the payment gateways 140. With thisarchitecture, each of the payment gateways 140 can manage branding andversioning of their payment gateway adapters, and the third-partyapplication exchange 160 can manage versioning and licensing of allpayment gateway adapters. After a payment gateway 140 creates one of thepayment gateway adapters 130, that payment gateway 140 can publish it asa managed package via the third-party application exchange 160. Amanaged package is a container used by clients 110 of Salesforce.com® todistribute and sell applications. A managed package is a container thatcan include an individual component or a set of related apps. Aftercreating a managed package, it can be distributed to otherSalesforce.com® users and organizations. An organization can create asingle managed package that can be downloaded and installed by manydifferent organizations. Managed packages differ from unmanaged packagesby having some locked components, allowing the managed package to beupgraded later. Unmanaged packages do not include locked components andcannot be upgraded.

The third-party application exchange 160 can then provide clients 110with access to the various payment gateway adapters 130-1 . . . 130-N(for each payment gateway 140-1 . . . 140-N) so that they can installthem and instantiate different payment gateway adapters for eachparticular payment gateway they desire to use.

The client organizations can then install the payment gateway adapters130. For example, in one embodiment, administrators of client 110organizations can use a payment gateway entity, which has nested namedcredentials, and create an instance of any payment gateway adapters 130for any payment gateways 140 that they want to implement. Administratorsof client organizations can get the gateway credentials for theirorganization and save it securely in the payment gateway entity. Basedon payment method type, regions and other business rules, a businesslogic layer can determine which payment gateway to use.

A payment gateway adapter 130 and the payments platform 126 will now bedescribed in greater detail with reference to FIGS. 2A through 8. FIG.2A is a block diagram that illustrates one example of a paymentsplatform 126 in accordance with the disclosed embodiments. FIG. 2Aillustrates how various elements of the payments platform 126 interactwith a particular instance of a payment gateway adapter 130-X from thethird-party application exchange 160 that has been installed at thepayments platform 126 of FIG. 1. The payments platform 126 includespayment user interfaces (UIs) 202, payment APIs 204, payment schedulers206, payment batch processes 208, and a business logic layer 210. Itshould be appreciated that this example of the payments platform 126that is shown in FIG. 2A is non-limiting, and that the payments platform126 can also include other components that help the clients integratewith payments platform 126.

The payment user interfaces (UIs) 202 are user interfaces that interactwith the Payment APIs 204 and carry out the payment transactions asdescribed herein. The payment APIs 204 are can include REpresentationalState Transfer (REST) and APEX® APIs to be used by clients 110 toprovide a programmatic way of interacting with the payments platform 126(e.g., to carry out payment transactions and collect money). Forinstance, a client 110 can use Payment APIs 204 to collect money from aPAYPAL® account of a customer 150 when that customer 150 places order.

The payment schedulers 206 are schedulers used by clients 110 toautomate payment transactions as described herein. The paymentschedulers 206 can be used, for example, for subscription and recurringpayments. The payment batch processes 208 are processes that processpayment transactions in groups or batches without user interaction.

The business logic layer 210 acts as an orchestrator and managescoordination of interconnections and interactions between the cloudcomputing platform 102 and the payment gateway adapters 130. In oneembodiment, the business logic layer 210 is written in JAVA®. Thebusiness logic layer 210 includes payment gateway client APIs 212, apayment gateway integration layer (PGIL) 214, and an APEX® paymentgateway adapter APIs 216.

The payments platform 126 exposes payment gateway client APIs 212 toclients 110. The payment gateway client APIs 212 are a unified set ofAPIs that clients 110 (e.g., ISVs/Partners) can use to build integrationand interact with the various different payment gateways 140. Forexample, PAYPAL® could use the payment gateway client APIs 212 tointegrate with the payments platform 126 and can implement paymentgateway adapter APIs 216, while the clients 110 can use the paymentgateway client APIs 212 to consume this. Clients 110 are free to choosefrom different types of APIs such as REST/SOAP/APEX® withoutunderstanding how payment gateway client APIs 212 work and in whichspecific type. For example, payment gateway client APIs 212 can includeREST/SOAP/APEX® APIs that can be exposed to the clients 110 to call fromflows, process builders, customer code, etc., whereas the APEX® paymentgateway adapter APIs 216 are APEX® APIs. For instance, a client 110 canuse a REST APIs for a sale call even though underneath the cover thepayment provider supports SOAP APIs. This provides a huge advantagebecause clients 110 of the payments platform 126 do not have tounderstand and interact with multiple APIs for different paymentgateways 140.

The payment gateway integration layer 214 abstracts the rest of thepayments platform 126 so that it can interact with the various paymentgateways 140 by exposing APIs of the cloud computing platform 102 tointeract with the various payment gateways 140. For example, in oneembodiment, the payment gateway integration layer 214 exposes APEX®payment gateway adapter APIs 216 to interact with the various paymentgateways 140. However, in other embodiments, the payment gatewayintegration layer 214 may expose other APIs to interact with the variouspayment gateways 140 (e.g., APIs written in any other language or APIsused by other platforms such as MULESOFT®, AMAZON WEB SERVICES® (AWS®),etc.). In other embodiments, the payment gateway integration layer 214may expose other APIs to interact with any other Platform as a Service(PaaS) layer such as AWS®, AZURE®, etc., or any integration service suchas MULESOFT®, INFORMATICA®, DELL BOOMI®, etc.

At a high-level, the payment gateway integration layer 214 receive arequest from a client 110 (e.g., a payment request JAVA® Object thatrepresents the request payload of the client), and returns a responsethat a particular payment adapter 130 sends to the payments platform 126(e.g., gateway response JAVA® Object that represents a response that apayment adapter 130 sends to the payments platform 126). As used hereina “request” can refer to a HTTP request received from a client for anytype of payment transaction or operation including those described abovewith reference to FIG. 3A. The request includes information re: whichpayment gateway adapter 130 to use so that payments platform 126 knowswhich payment gateway adapter 130 to call and invoke. The paymentgateway integration layer 214 coordinates calls between the paymentsplatform 126 and the payment gateway services 140. The payment gatewayintegration layer 214 processes requests and calls a particular paymentgateway adapter 130 specified in each the request. Once the paymentgateway adapter 130 gets a response back, it forwards that response tothe payment gateway integration layer 214 of the payments platform 126.As used herein a “response” can refer to a HTTP response received from apayment gateway that has been translated by a payment adapter for anytype of payment transaction or operation including those described abovewith reference to FIG. 3A.

Depending on the implementation, the payment gateway integration layer214 also performs a number of functions. For example, the paymentgateway integration layer 214 can also initialize an adapter specificenvironment, convert the payment request to appropriate adapter specificformat, call the adapter, convert the adapter specific response topayment platform specific response (or “gateway response”), return theresponse, etc. For instance, in one implementation, the payment gatewayintegration layer 214 can also initialize and load an APEX® adapterclass based on the configuration provided in the payment request,convert the payment request to appropriate APEX® API specific format,execute the APEX® adapter, receive the APEX® response, and convert theAPEX® response to gateway response and return the response. In addition,other adapters, such as MULESOFT® or AWS® adapters, may perform similarsteps specific to those environments.

Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) can selectively integrate any of theAPEX® payment gateway adapter APIs 216 with the payments platform 126 sothat the payments platform 126 can be scaled to support multiple paymentgateways 140. The payments platform 126 insulates both the clients 110from the payment gateways 140 and the payment gateways 140 from thebusiness logic. To explain further, the payments platform 126 provides(or “exposes”) a corresponding set of APEX® payment gateway adapter APIs216 for each of the different payment transactions/operations 220 shownin FIG. 2A. Each of the different payment transactions/operations 220shown in FIG. 2A will be described in greater detail below withreference to FIG. 3A. The APEX® payment gateway adapter APIs 216 serveas bridge between the APEX® payment gateway integration layer 214 andthe payment gateway adapter 130-X. The APEX® payment gateway integrationlayer 214 and the payment gateway adapter 130-X interact with each otherusing the APEX® payment gateway adapter APIs 216.

The payments platform 126 exposes the APEX® payment gateway adapter APIs216 to allow developers of the payment gateways 140 to build paymentgateway adapters 130. The payment gateway adapter 130-X is a paymentgateway adapter of a particular payment gateway service provider 140.Each payment gateway adapter 130 is a managed package application thatcan be installed by a client 110 (e.g., org/tenant). Once the particularpayment gateway adapter 130 is installed, properties and settings forthat payment gateway adapter 130 can be configured by the client 110.

The payments platform 126 can then execute one of the payment gatewayadapters that have been selected by a client to implement the set ofAPEX® payment gateway adapter APIs 216 so that APIs of particularpayment gateway service 140 can be translated into the payment gatewayclient APIs 212 (APIs of the cloud computing platform 102). In otherwords, each payment gateway adapter 130 translates APIs of a particularpayment gateway service into the APIs of the cloud computing platform102 so that they are compatible. At a high-level the payment gatewayadapter 130-X takes in a request APEX® object and returns a responseAPEX® object. The request APEX® object can be, for example, anauthorization request, an authorization reversal request, a capturerequest, a sale request, a void request, or a refund request, etc.Similarly, the response APEX® object can be an authorization response,an authorization reversal response, a capture response, a sale response,a void response, or a refund response, etc.

FIGS. 2B and 2C are collectively one non-limiting set of APIs for anAPEX® interface in accordance with the disclosed embodiments. FIG. 2B isan APEX® code sample 250 that is used to specify a signature of thepayment gateway adapter 130 in accordance with the disclosedembodiments. FIG. 2C shows APEX® APIs 252, 254, 256 that are invoked bythe payments platform 126 in accordance with the disclosed embodiments.

APEX® API 252 is used to specify namespaces for: a global class for apayment gateway context; a global payment gateway request to get apayment request; a global string get payment request type; a globalinterface for payment gateway response; a global class for a gatewayerror response; and a global interface or a payment gateway request.

APEX® API 254 is used to specify namespaces for: a global abstract classfor an abstract response that implements the gateway response. APEX® API254 is used to specify setter methods for common gateway response codesincluding: a gateway result code, a result code description, a resultcode of the cloud computing platform, reference number of the cloudcomputing platform, a gateway reference number, gateway referencedetails, gateway datum (time and date), amount, and a currency iso-code.

APEX® API 256 is used to specify namespaces for: a global class for anauthorization response that extends the abstract response and containssetter methods for setting all of the response parameters specific to anauthorization response; and a global class for an authorization requestthat includes payment gateway request getter methods for getting all theparameters of an authorization request.

FIG. 2D is an example of how a client will implement API for a specificpayment gateway adapter 130 in accordance with the disclosedembodiments. More specifically, FIG. 2D shows APEX® pseudocode for animplementation of a payment gateway adapter, pseudocode for anauthorization request and pseudocode authorization response inaccordance with the disclosed embodiments. Although FIG. 2D showspseudocode for an authorization request and pseudocode authorizationresponse, it should be appreciated that the same or similar code patternor structure can be used to implement other types of paymenttransactions including requests such as an authorization reversalrequest, a capture request, a sale request, a void request, and a refundrequest, and responses such as an authorization reversal response, acapture response, a sale response, a void response, and a refundresponse.

The code includes code for specifying a global class namespace for apayment gateway adapter; and a global namespace for specifying a gatewayresponse process request and payment gateway context. The code includesa string request type used to specify payment gateway context forgetting a payment request type. The code can be used to validate dataand send an error response of the type gateway error response in theevent there are any data validation errors. The code includes a bodyused to build an authorization request for a payment gateway context andto get a payment request, code to execute a call specified by the body,and code to create and return an authorization response. The codeincludes code for executing a call on string body for a private HTTPresponse. The code includes code for building an authorization requestincluding a string for creating a request body and returning the requestbody. The private string for creating the request body includes a stringtransaction type, a string amount, a string currency iso-namespace, anda payment method. The code includes code for creating a JSON generatorinstance and writing data to a JSON string. If the payment method is acredit card, the code can write the card data to an end object andreturn a JSON generator instance as a string. The code includes code forspecifying a private namespace and creating an authorization response.The code can be used to create a map of response values by parsing theresponse. The code includes code for populating an authorizationresponse object and a payment method response. The code includes codefor specifying a namespace for the payment method response and setting agateway token by getting the map of response values, and then returningthe authorization response. The code includes code for parsing the JSONstring of the authorization response to key-value pairs, and thenreturning a map of response values by key.

Types of Payment Transactions/Operations/APIs

Referring again to FIG. 2A, the arrows 220 represent various types ofpayment transactions/operations that can take place between a client 110and a customer 150. The payment transactions/operations represented bythe arrows 220 can include, for example, an authorization transaction,an authorization reversal transaction, a capture transaction, a saletransaction, a void transaction, and a refund transaction. These paymenttransactions/operations will be described in greater detail below withreference to FIG. 3A.

FIG. 3A is a conceptual diagram that shows various types of paymenttransactions/operations 220 that are supported by the payments platform126 in accordance with the disclosed embodiments. As described withreference to FIG. 2A, the payments platform 126 provides or exposescorresponding APEX® payment gateway adapter APIs 216 for each of thedifferent payment transactions/operations 220. The API definitions areuniversal for all clients 110. As shown in FIG. 3A, the paymenttransactions/operations include an authorization transaction/operation302, an authorization reversal transaction/operation 304, a capturetransaction/operation 306, a sale transaction/operation 308, a voidtransaction/operation 310, and a refund transaction/operation 312. Itshould be appreciated that there could be other types oftransactions/operations that are not illustrated in FIG. 3A, as well ascorresponding APIs for each of the other types oftransactions/operations that are not illustrated in FIG. 3A.

An authorization transaction/operation 302 is a transaction for apotential payment by a customer 150 that reserves funds from availablecredit of the customer 150. An authorization transaction/operation 302is not a payment. To explain further, an authorizationtransaction/operation 302 can reserve funds from the available credit ofa credit card (or equivalent source of credit). As it is a reserve,there are no financial impacts for an authorizationtransaction/operation 302. An authorization transaction/operation 302can be seen by the end user as a “pending transaction,” but will not beincluded on the monthly card statement, even if it is seen on the creditcard website.

An authorization reversal transaction/operation 304 is a transactionthat releases funds of a customer 150 that are held in authorization. Toexplain further, an authorization reversal transaction/operation 304gives back the funds on reserved via an authorizationtransaction/operation 302. When an authorization reversaltransaction/operation 304 is performed, it will remove the authorizationtransaction/operation 302 from “pending transactions.”

A capture transaction/operation 306 is a transaction that is an actualtransfer of funds to a client's 110 bank account (e.g., merchant's bankaccount). To explain further, a capture transaction/operation 306consumes the funds on reserved via an authorizationtransaction/operation 302. A capture transaction/operation 306 istypically done during the order shipment time.

A sale transaction/operation 308 is a direct capture transaction withoutany authorization. To explain further, a sale transaction/operation 308is a type of transaction where an authorization transaction/operation302 and a capture transaction/operation 306 are done as part of a singlerequest. A sale transaction/operation 308 is typically done where theorder is fulfilled immediately.

A transaction can be voided after purchase but before settlement. A voidtransaction/operation 310 is a transaction for cancellation of both acapture transaction/operation 306 and a sale transaction/operation 308before settlement. In other words, a void transaction/operation 310cancels the transfer of funds to a client's 110 bank account (e.g.,merchant's bank account) before settlement. To explain further, when apayment is processed funds are held and the balance is deducted from thecustomer's credit limit, but not yet transferred to a client's 110 bankaccount (e.g., merchant's bank account). At a later point alltransactions are batched up for settlement, and at that point the fundsare transferred to the client's 110 bank account (e.g., merchant's bankaccount).

A refund transaction/operation 312 is a transaction that reverts apayment to a customer 150 after it has been transferred to the client's110 bank account (e.g., merchant's bank account). To explain further, arefund transaction/operation 312 transfers the requested amount from theclient's 110 bank account (e.g., merchant's bank account) back to thecustomer's account.

FIG. 3B shows an input payload structure of a request in accordance withthe disclosed embodiments. In this particular example, the request is anauthorization request; however, it should be appreciated that a similarcode structure can be used for other types of requests such as anauthorization reversal request, a capture request, a sale request, avoid request, and a refund request. FIG. 3C shows an output payloadstructure of a response in accordance with the disclosed embodiments. Inthis particular example, the response is an authorization response;however, it should be appreciated that a similar code structure can beused for other types of responses such as an authorization reversalresponse, a capture response, a sale response, a void response, and arefund response. As such, FIG. 3B shows the input payload structure ofan authorization request, whereas FIG. 3C shows the output payloadstructure of an authorization response.

FIG. 3D is an APEX® input payload structure of a request 350 and anotherAPEX® output payload structure of a response 352 in accordance with thedisclosed embodiments. Here again, in this particular example, therequest 350 is an authorization request; however, it should beappreciated that a similar code structure can be used for other types ofrequests such as an authorization reversal request, a capture request, asale request, a void request, and a refund request. Likewise, theresponse 352 is an authorization response; however, it should beappreciated that a similar code structure can be used for other types ofresponses such as an authorization reversal response, a captureresponse, a sale response, a void response, and a refund response.

External Processing Mode

As noted above with reference to FIG. 1, the payments platform 126 cansupport two different processing or recording modes for recordingtransaction data at the cloud computing platform 102. These twodifferent modes will be referred to herein as “external mode” and“internal mode” or “Salesforce® mode.”

External mode is used to support external systems. In external mode,interaction with a payment gateway 140 will happen outside of the cloudcomputing platform 102 (e.g., the Salesforce.com platform). Clients 110will be able to record data from old or previously executed transactionsthat had occurred previously and outside of the cloud computing platform102 (and outside of the payments platform 126) within the paymentsplatform 126. In addition, clients 110 will be able to migrate oldtransaction data from other external systems to the cloud computingplatform 102. For example, old transaction data from an enterpriseresource planning (ERP) system that is external to or outside of thecloud computing platform 102 can be migrated to a database system 122 ofthe cloud computing platform 102.

For example, some clients 110 have complex systems, and one part of atransaction might occur externally in one part of the system that isexternal to the cloud computing platform 102. Any transaction data thatoccurs externally outside the cloud computing platform 102 can bemigrated to and recorded within the cloud computing platform 102. Then,when another part of the transaction occurs in the cloud computingplatform 102 (e.g., to handle the refund transaction when the customerreturns the product) the previous transaction data is already availablewithin the cloud computing platform 102 to perform that part of thetransaction that occurs within the cloud computing platform 102.

In another example of external mode, a client may have large volumes ofpre-existing transaction data from pre-existing transactions withcustomers, and then decide to start using the cloud computing platform102. The client can migrate this external data to the cloud computingplatform 102 using external mode. In addition, once this externallymigrated data is available within the cloud computing platform 102 itcan be used for other purposes (e.g., validation, reporting, analytics,etc.).

FIG. 4A is a block diagram that illustrates one example scenario of thepayments platform 126 operating in an external mode in accordance withthe disclosed embodiments. In FIG. 4A, one non-limiting example is shownof how the payments platform 126 can record an order and authorizationtransaction into the cloud computing platform 102 when the paymentsplatform 126 is operating in external mode so that the information canbe used during subsequent payment transactions/operations such as anauthorization reversal transaction, a capture transaction, a saletransaction, a void transaction, a refund transaction, etc.).

For example, a client 110 of the cloud computing platform 102 canperform a payment authorization during checkout via an external service402 (labeled Commerce Cloud Digital Storefront in FIG. 4A) that isexternal to the cloud computing platform 102 (i.e., outside of the cloudcomputing platform 102). The client 110 can then record the details ofthe authorization transaction within the payments platform 126 of thecloud computing platform 102. After the details from this externaltransaction are recorded within the payments platform 126, those detailscan later be utilized by the payments platform 126 during other types oftransactions by the payments platform 126. For instance, when the orderis ready to be shipped or fulfilled, the payments platform 126 can thenuse the same recorded transaction details to perform subsequent“capture” of payment.

FIG. 4B is a flowchart that illustrates a method 410 for recording datafrom an authorization transaction when a payments platform 126 operatesin an external mode in accordance with the disclosed embodiments. Themethod 410 begins at 412, when a client 110 sends an authorizationrequest to a payment gateway 140 (or other third-party system). At 414,the payment gateway 140 (or other third-party system) receives theauthorization request and processes it. The method 410 then proceeds to416, where the client 110 receives an authorization response from thepayment gateway 140 (or other third-party system). The method 410 thenproceeds to 418 where the client 110 ingests data from the authorizationresponse into the payments platform 126. The method 410 then proceeds to420, where the payments platform 126 persists a record for theauthorization transaction in the database system 122. As will beexplained with reference to FIG. 4C, the transaction data from theauthorization transaction can be subsequently used for another capturetransaction when the payments platform 126 later operates in internalmode.

Internal Processing Mode

An external transaction (i.e., that occurred when the payments platform126 was operating in an external mode) that is recorded within thepayments platform 126 can be used to carry out subsequent transactionusing internal mode or vice versa. That is, once data from a transactionis ingested into by the payments platform 126, that data can then beused via APIs 204/212 of the payments platform 126 to perform otherpayment transactions. When the payments platform 126 operates in aninternal mode (not illustrated in FIG. 4A and also referred to as“Salesforce® mode” herein), any interaction with a payment gateway 140will happen within or “inside of” the cloud computing platform 102(e.g., the Salesforce.com® platform). In internal mode, transactionsoccur within the payments platform 126, and clients 110 record all ofthe details at the payments platform 126.

FIG. 4C is a flowchart that illustrates a method 430 for using priortransaction data from another payment transaction that was ingested intothe payments platform 126 that occurred when the payments platform 126was operating in external mode when the payments platform 126 operatesin an internal mode to complete a capture transaction in accordance withthe disclosed embodiments. In this particular non-limiting example, theprior transaction data from another payment transaction that wasingested into the payments platform 126 (that occurred when the paymentsplatform 126 was operating in external mode) is prior transaction datathat was previously recorded from the authorization transaction of FIG.4B.

The method 430 begins at 432 when a client 110 sends a request for acapture transaction that corresponds or is related to a previousauthorization transaction (e.g., the authorization request that wasdescribed above with reference to FIG. 4B). At 434, the paymentsplatform 126 receives the request for the capture transaction, and themethod 430 then proceeds to 436, where the payments platform 126retrieves transaction data that was ingested from the previousauthorization request (that was described above with reference to FIG.4B). The method 430 then proceeds to 438, where the payments platform126 sends the request for the capture transaction to the same paymentgateway 140 (that was described above with reference to FIG. 4B). Themethod 430 then proceeds to 440, where the payment gateway 140 processesthe request for the capture transaction, generates a response and sendsthe response to the payments platform 126. The method 430 then proceedsto 442, where the payments platform 126 receives the response, and thenpersists (at 444) a transaction record in the database system 122. Thetransaction record includes transaction data from the capture response,and the transaction is marked as having occurred in internal mode. At446, the payments platform 126 sends an appropriate response to theclient 110.

In the particular example illustrated in FIGS. 4B and 4C, onenon-limiting example is described in which data from an authorizationtransaction that originated when the payments platform 126 is operatingin external mode is recorded, and then used in FIG. 4C for a subsequentcapture transaction by the payments platform 126 when it is operating ininternal mode. It should be noted that although FIGS. 4B and 4C describea particular, non-limiting example in which authorization and capturetransactions are described, respectively, these examples arenon-limiting, and that other types of payment transactions can also beperformed in a similar manner when the payments platform 126 isoperating in external mode and then used in other subsequenttransactions by the payments platform 126 when it is operating ininternal mode. For instance, payment transactions such as capture andrefund, or capture and void may also be performed by the paymentsplatform 126 is a similar manner. Further, it should also be appreciatedthat the reverse is also true, meaning that a payment transaction mayoriginate in internal mode and then be subsequently used for a laterpayment transaction that occurs in external mode.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart that illustrates a synchronous payment transactiondata flow method 500 between elements of the payments platform 126, apayment gateway adapter 130 and a payment gateway 140 in accordance withthe disclosed embodiments. The method 500 is a “synchronous” paymenttransaction data flow method because the payment gateway processesrequests from clients synchronously meaning that a request is received(at 504), and then processed to generate an actual response and theactual response is sent to the payments platform 126 (at 522) as part ofthe same interaction (e.g., same call or same thread). The paymentsplatform 126 can then forward that response to the particular paymentgateway adapter 130. In this mode there is always a response back whichmeans creation of a payment entity is deterministic. There is no needfor creation of a payment entity in a pending state and later marking itin error if an unsuccessful response is received.

The synchronous payment transaction data flow method 500 begins at 502,when a particular client 110 sends a request to the payments platform126.

The synchronous payment transaction data flow method 500 then proceedsto 504, where the payments platform 126 receives and validates therequest received from the particular client 110. The synchronous paymenttransaction data flow method 500 then proceeds to 506, where thepayments platform 126 determines whether the request is valid. When thepayments platform 126 determines (at 506) that the payment request isinvalid, the synchronous payment transaction data flow method 500 thenproceeds to 536, where the payments platform 126 sends an appropriateerror response to the particular client 110 that indicates why therequest from the client 110 was invalid.

When the payments platform 126 determines (at 506) that the request isvalid, the synchronous payment transaction data flow method 500 thenproceeds to 508, where the payment gateway integration layer 214 of thebusiness logic layer 210 validates a specific configuration of thepayment gateway 140. The synchronous payment transaction data flowmethod 500 then proceeds to 510, where the payment gateway integrationlayer 214 determines whether the specific configuration of the paymentgateway 140 is valid.

When the payment gateway integration layer 214 determines (at 510) thatthe specific configuration of the payment gateway 140 is invalid, thesynchronous payment transaction data flow method 500 then proceeds to536, where the payments platform 126 sends the particular client 110 anappropriate error response that indicates why the configuration of thepayment gateway 140 was invalid.

When the payment gateway integration layer 214 determines (at 510) thatthe configuration of the payment gateway 140 is valid, the synchronouspayment transaction data flow method 500 then proceeds to 512, where thepayment gateway integration layer 214 sends the client 110 initializesand calls a particular payment gateway adapter 130 for the particularpayment gateway 140. The synchronous payment transaction data flowmethod 500 then proceeds to 514, where the payment gateway adapter 130validates the request data. The request data can include the payloadthat was sent as part of the request. For example, if the paymentgateway adapter was expecting a Card Verification Value (CVV) number tobe 3 or 4 digits, and a client sends 2 digits or 6 digits then paymentgateway adapter might validate this and send an error instead of goingall the way to the gateway.

The synchronous payment transaction data flow method 500 then proceedsto 516, where the payment gateway adapter 130 determines whether datafrom the request is valid. When the payment gateway adapter 130determines (at 516) that the request data is invalid, the synchronouspayment transaction data flow method 500 then proceeds to 528, where thepayments platform 126 receives a response that indicates why requestdata was invalid.

When the payment gateway adapter 130 determines (at 516) that therequest data is valid, the synchronous payment transaction data flowmethod 500 then proceeds to 518, where the payment gateway adapter 130transforms the request into a gateway specific format for thatparticular payment gateway 140. The synchronous payment transaction dataflow method 500 then proceeds to 520, where the payments platform 126performs internal processing and then payment gateway adapter 130 callsthe particular payment gateway 140. The synchronous payment transactiondata flow method 500 then proceeds to 522 where the payment gateway 140processes the request and sends an actual response to the paymentsplatform 126 in the same interaction (e.g., call or thread). Thesynchronous payment transaction data flow method 500 then proceeds to524, where the payments platform 126 forwards the response to theparticular payment gateway adapter 130. The synchronous paymenttransaction data flow method 500 then proceeds to 526, where the paymentgateway adapter 130 transforms the response into a specific format usedby the payments platform 126, and then to 528, where the paymentsplatform 126 receives the response from the payment gateway adapter 130.

At 530, the payments platform 126 determines whether the gateway callwas successful. When the payments platform 126 determines (at 530) thatthe gateway call was successful, the synchronous payment transactiondata flow method 500 proceeds to 532, where the payments platform 126persists data to the database system 122, and then to 534, where thepayments platform 126 sends the particular client 110 an appropriateresponse, and the synchronous payment transaction data flow method 500ends. By contrast, when the payments platform 126 determines (at 530)that the gateway call was not successful, the synchronous paymenttransaction data flow method 500 proceeds to 536, where the paymentsplatform 126 sends an appropriate error response to the particularclient 110, and the synchronous payment transaction data flow method 500ends.

FIG. 6 is a flow diagram that illustrates a synchronous paymenttransaction data flow 600 between a client 110 of the cloud computingplatform 102, the payments platform 126, a payment gateway adapter 130and a payment gateway 140 in accordance with the disclosed embodiments.In FIG. 6 an example is shown where a payment capture request isreceived from a client. However, it should be appreciated that the dataflow could apply to other types of payment transactions/operations, suchas, an authorization transaction, an authorization reversal transaction,a sale transaction, a void transaction, a refund transaction, etc.

The data flow 600 begins at 602 when the payments platform 126 receivespayment capture request from a client 110. At 604, the payments platform126 sends the payment capture request to a particular payment gatewayadapter 130 (that is managed package in a client organization), and theparticular payment gateway adapter 130 transforms the payment capturerequest (at 605) to generate a transformed payment request that is sentto the payments platform 126.

At 606, the payments platform 126 receives the transformed paymentrequest from the payment gateway adapter 130. At 608, the paymentsplatform 126 creates a payment gateway log record. The payment gatewaylog record includes data from the transformed payment request and apayment gateway ID. At this time the gateway log status isnull/in-process. At 610, the payments platform 126 makes a call to apayment gateway 140 endpoint with the transformed payment request, andat 611, the payment gateway 140 processes the transformed paymentrequest to generate a response.

At 612, the payments platform 126 receives the response from the paymentgateway 140. At 614, the payments platform 126 performs processing tocreate or update records (e.g., payment records, payment gateway logrecords, etc.) and stores the records. For example, the paymentsplatform 126 can perform processing to update the existing paymentgateway log record (that as created at 808) with the response, and tocreate a payment record with payment details. At this point, the gatewayinteraction status of the existing payment gateway log record can beupdated to either success, failed, timeout, etc., and also updated withother values like gateway auth code, gateway reference number, gatewayresult code, salesforce result code, gateway result code description,gateway date, gateway message, gateway AVS code, response data, etc.

At 616, the payments platform 126 sends the updated response to thepayment gateway adapter 130 for transformation. At 617, the paymentgateway adapter 130 transforms the updated response (as described abovewith reference to 526 of FIG. 7) to generate a transformed response. At618, the payments platform 126 receives the transformed response fromthe payment gateway adapter 130. At 620, the payments platform 126evaluates the transformed response to determine whether it wassuccessful or unsuccessful, and may perform processing to create orupdate a payment record and a status of the payment record, and/oroptionally publish an event notification. The method 600 ends at 622,where the payments platform 126 sends an appropriate response to theclient 110 with the existing payment gateway log record with gateway logdetails, and/or payment record (which can be null when the transformedresponse was unsuccessful). The content of the response varies dependingon whether the transformed response was successful or unsuccessful.

For example, when the transformed response was successful (e.g., thatthe response from the payment gateway 140 indicated that the transactionwas successful), at 620 the payments platform 126 creates a paymentrecord with a status that indicates “processed”, and then responds backto the client at 622 with gateway log details, payment record details,and other fields. The payment record can include some or all of thefinancial of payment details related to payment such as amount, paymentmethod details, payment type (e.g., capture or sale), transaction date,payment gateway that was used, etc.

By contrast, when the transformed response was unsuccessful, at 620 thepayments platform 126 updates the existing payment gateway log record(from 604), and responds back to the client at 622 with a paymentgateway ID. No payment record is created by the payments platform 126,when the transformed response was unsuccessful.

In accordance with the disclosed embodiments, the payments platform 126can work seamlessly with both synchronous and asynchronous paymentgateways 140. FIG. 7 is a flowchart that illustrates a paymenttransaction data flow method 700 between elements of the paymentsplatform 126, a payment gateway adapter 130 and a payment gateway 140 inaccordance with the disclosed embodiments. In an asynchronous paymenttransaction data flow method, the payment gateway processes requestsfrom clients 110 asynchronously meaning that there is a delay periodbetween the payment gateway 140 receiving and acknowledging a request,and then processing the request and sending an actual response to thepayments platform 126 so that the payments platform 126 can then forwardthat response to the particular payment gateway adapter 130. In thisasynchronous mode the payment response is not deterministic, meaningthat the payment gateway 140 may receive a request and acknowledged therequest as part of one interaction (e.g., that same call/thread), andthen process and/or send an actual response to the payments platform 126as part of another interaction (e.g., different call or thread).

The payment transaction data flow method 700 begins at 702, when aparticular client 110 sends a payment request to the payments platform126. The payment transaction data flow method 700 then proceeds to 704,where the payments platform 126 receives and validates the requestreceived from the particular client 110. The payment transaction dataflow method 700 then proceeds to 706, where the payments platform 126determines whether the request is valid. When the payments platform 126determines (at 706) that the request is invalid, the payment transactiondata flow method 700 then proceeds to 744, where the payments platform126 causes an appropriate error response to be sent to the particularclient 110 that indicates why the request from the client 110 wasinvalid. When the payments platform 126 causes the error response to besent to the particular client 110, this means that the payments platform126 can, for example, take action (e.g., raise events/notifications orcall another service provided by client 110) to indirectly provide theclient 110 with the error response.

When the payments platform 126 determines (at 706) that the request isvalid, the payment transaction data flow method 700 then proceeds to708, where the payment gateway integration layer 214 of the businesslogic layer 210 validates a specific configuration of the paymentgateway 140. The payment transaction data flow method 700 then proceedsto 710, where the payment gateway integration layer 214 determineswhether the specific configuration of the payment gateway 140 is valid.

When the payment gateway integration layer 214 determines (at 710) thatthe specific configuration of the payment gateway 140 is invalid, thepayment transaction data flow method 700 then proceeds to 744, where thepayments platform 126 sends the particular client 110 an appropriateerror response that indicates why the configuration of the paymentgateway 140 was invalid.

When the payment gateway integration layer 214 determines (at 710) thatthe configuration of the payment gateway 140 is valid, the paymenttransaction data flow method 700 then proceeds to 712, where the paymentgateway integration layer 214 initializes and calls a particular paymentgateway adapter 130 for the particular payment gateway 140. The paymenttransaction data flow method 700 then proceeds to 714, where the paymentgateway adapter 130 validates the request data.

The payment transaction data flow method 700 then proceeds to 716, wherethe payment gateway adapter 130 determines whether the request data isvalid. When the payment gateway adapter 130 determines (at 716) that therequest data is invalid, the payment transaction data flow method 700then proceeds to 730, where the payments platform 126 receives aresponse that indicates that the request data was invalid.

When the payment gateway adapter 130 determines (at 716) that therequest data is valid, the payment transaction data flow method 700 thenproceeds to 718, where the payment gateway adapter 130 transforms therequest into a gateway specific format for that particular paymentgateway 140. The payment transaction data flow method 700 then proceedsto 720, where the payments platform 126 performs internal processing,and then the payment gateway adapter 130 calls the particular paymentgateway 140.

The payment transaction data flow method 700 then proceeds to 722, wherethe particular payment gateway 140 receives and acknowledges that thetransformed request has been received/accepted by sending anacknowledgment response, and then to 728, where the payment gatewayadapter 130 transforms the acknowledgment response into a specificformat used by the payments platform 126. In this embodiment, becausethe payment gateway 140 is an asynchronous payment gateway 140,following 722, there is a delay period (at 723) between the paymentgateway 140 receiving the request in one interaction (e.g., call orthread) at a certain time and sending an actual response to the paymentsplatform 126 in another separate interaction (e.g., call or thread) thathappens at a later time.

How this happens can vary depending on the implementation of theasynchronous payment gateway 140, the payments platform 126 and thepayment gateway adapter 130. This can happen, for example, because insome implementations the asynchronous payment gateway 140 might call thepayments platform 126 and let it know the status, whereas in otherimplementations the payments platform 126 might call the payment gatewayadapter 130 and ask for the status. For example, in one implementationshown in FIG. 7, the asynchronous payment gateway 140 can receive andacknowledge the request (at 722) in an interaction (e.g., call orthread) at a certain time, and then proceeds to 724 where the paymentgateway 140 processes the request and sends an actual response to thepayments platform 126 in another interaction (e.g., call or thread) thathappens at a later time. However, it should be appreciated that in otherimplementations, the asynchronous payment gateway 140 can receive therequest in an interaction (e.g., call or thread) at a certain time, andthen acknowledge and/or process the request in another thread, and thensend an actual response to the payments platform 126 in a yet anotherseparate thread. In yet other implementations, the asynchronous paymentgateway 140 can receive and acknowledge the request (at 722) and thenprocess the request in an interaction (e.g., call or thread) at acertain time, and then send an actual response to the payments platform126 in another interaction (e.g., call or thread) that happens at alater time. Regardless of the implementation of the asynchronous paymentgateway 140, the response from the payment gateway 140 will come inanother interaction (e.g., call or thread) that happens at a later timefrom the thread in which the payment gateway 140 receives the request(at 722).

After the payment gateway 140 processes the request and sends an actualresponse to the payments platform 126, the payment transaction data flowmethod 700 then proceeds to 726, where the payments platform 126forwards the response to the particular payment gateway adapter 130.

Following 726, the payment transaction data flow method 700 thenproceeds to 728, where the payment gateway adapter 130 transforms theactual response into a specific format used by the payments platform126. Following 728, the payment transaction data flow method 700 thenproceeds to 730, where the payments platform 126 receives thetransformed response from the payment gateway adapter 130. The paymenttransaction data flow method 700 then proceeds to 732, where thepayments platform 126 determines, based on the transformed response thatwas received (at 730), whether the payment gateway 140 is anasynchronous payment gateway 140. It should be noted that when themethod 700 starts during run time, the payments platform 126 does notknow if a payment gateway 140 is synchronous or asynchronous paymentgateway because there is no configuration information that indicateswhether the payment gateway is synchronous or asynchronous. As will beexplained in greater detail below, when a response is received frompayment gateway adapter 130 (at 730), the payments platform 126 canprocess the response and determine if the response from the paymentgateway 140 is a synchronous response or an asynchronous response.

When the payments platform 126 determines that the payment gateway 140is an asynchronous payment gateway 140, the payment transaction dataflow method 700 then proceeds to 734, where the payments platform 126persists data to the database system 122 in a pending state, and then to740, where the payments platform 126 causes an appropriate response tobe sent to the particular client 110. When the payments platform 126causes the response to be sent to the particular client 110, this meansthat the payments platform 126 can, for example, take action (e.g.,raise events/notifications or call another service provided by client110) to indirectly provide the client 110 with the response. As usedherein a “pending state” can refer to a state in which the paymentgateway 140 has acknowledged the request, but has not determined whetherthe payment was successful or not. Keeping the record in that state isimportant because when the response is received, all of request datacannot be created from the response.

By contrast, when the payments platform 126 determines (at 732) that thepayment gateway 140 is a synchronous payment gateway 140, the paymenttransaction data flow method 700 then proceeds to 736, where thepayments platform 126 determines whether the gateway call wassuccessful.

When the payments platform 126 determines (at 736) that the gateway callwas successful, the payment transaction data flow method 700 proceeds to738, where the payments platform 126 updates the pending state toprocessed, and then to 740, where the payments platform 126 causes anappropriate response to be sent to the particular client 110, and thepayment transaction data flow method 700 ends. When the paymentsplatform 126 causes the response to be sent to the particular client110, this means that the payments platform 126 can, for example, takeaction (e.g., raise events/notifications or call another serviceprovided by client 110) to indirectly provide the client 110 with theresponse.

When the payments platform 126 determines (at 736) that the gateway callwas not successful, the payment transaction data flow method 700proceeds to 742, where the payments platform 126 updates the pendingstate to failed, and then to 744, where the payments platform 126 causesan appropriate error response to be sent to the particular client 110,and the payment transaction data flow method 700 ends. When the paymentsplatform 126 causes the error response to be sent to the particularclient 110, this means that the payments platform 126 can, for example,take action (e.g., raise events/notifications or call another serviceprovided by client 110) to indirectly provide the client 110 with theerror response.

FIG. 8 is a flow diagram that illustrates an asynchronous paymenttransaction data flow 800 between a client 110 of the cloud computingplatform 102, the payments platform 126, a payment gateway adapter 130and a payment gateway 140 in accordance with the disclosed embodiments.In FIG. 8 an example is shown where a payment capture request isreceived from a client. However, it should be appreciated that the dataflow could apply to other types of payment transactions/operations, suchas, an authorization transaction, an authorization reversal transaction,a sale transaction, a void transaction, a refund transaction, etc.

The data flow 800 begins at 802 when the payments platform 126 receivespayment capture request from a client 110. At 804, the payments platform126 sends the payment capture request to a particular payment gatewayadapter 130 (that is managed package in a client organization), and theparticular payment gateway adapter 130 transforms the payment capturerequest at 805 to generate a transformed payment request that is sent tothe payments platform 126.

At 806, the payments platform 126 receives the transformed paymentrequest from the payment gateway adapter 130. At 808, the paymentsplatform 126 creates a payment gateway log record. The payment gatewaylog record includes data from the transformed payment request and apayment gateway ID. At this time the gateway log status isnull/in-process (or incomplete), and the payment linked to this gatewaylog is still in pending state. At 810, the payments platform 126 makes acall to a payment gateway 140 endpoint with the transformed paymentrequest, and at 811, the payment gateway 140 processes the transformedpayment request to generate an acknowledgment response.

At 812, the payment gateway adapter 130 receives the acknowledgmentresponse from the payment gateway 140, and the particular paymentgateway adapter 130 transforms the acknowledgment response to generate atransformed acknowledgment response that is sent to the paymentsplatform 126. The line is shown as a dotted line to indicate that theresponse at 812 is an acknowledgement response (as opposed to an actualresponse).

At 814, the payments platform 126 performs processing to create orupdate records (e.g., payment records, payment gateway log records,etc.) and stores the records. For example, the payments platform 126 canperform processing to update the existing payment gateway log record(that as created at 808) with the response, and to create a paymentrecord with payment details and a status set to pending. At this point,the gateway interaction status of the existing payment gateway logrecord can be updated to either success, failed, timeout, etc., and alsoupdated with other values like gateway auth code, gateway referencenumber, gateway result code, salesforce result code, gateway result codedescription, gateway date, gateway message, gateway AVS code, responsedata, etc.

At 820, the payments platform 126 sends a response 822 back to theclient with payment details (e.g., a payment ID and payment gateway logID) that are related to a payment object created in the cloud computingplatform 102.

After a delay period, at 823, the payment gateway 140 generates aresponse. In one embodiment, at 824, the payment gateway 140 calls backdirectly to the payments platform 126 to process the response. Inanother embodiment, at 824, the payment gateway 140 calls back to theAPEX® rest endpoint 825 at the payment gateway adapter 130, and then at826, the payment gateway adapter 130 calls a recording API from thepayments platform 126 to process the response received from the paymentgateway 140.

At 828, the payments platform 126 performs processing to create anewpayment gateway log record that will be linked back to the paymentgateway log record that was created at 808, updates the payment record,and stores the records. The new payment gateway log record includes acleansed request response string, normalized data, various referencecodes to track the payment from the payment gateway to the issuing bank,etc.

At 830, the payments platform 126 sends a response to the paymentgateway adapter 130 for transformation. At 831, the payment gatewayadapter 130 transforms the response (as described above with referenceto 728 of FIG. 7) to generate a transformed response. At 832, thepayments platform 126 receives the transformed response from the paymentgateway adapter 130. At 834, the payments platform 126 evaluates thetransformed response to determine whether it was successful orunsuccessful, and performs processing to update the payment record andthe status of the payment record, and publishes an event notification.

For example, when the payments platform 126 determines (at 834) that thetransformed response was successful, the payments platform 126 updatesthe payment record, the status of the payment record to indicate that ithas been processed, and publishes the event notification that indicatesthat the payment was processed and that the end customer payment is insync with the payment platform, the gateway, etc. The payment record caninclude some or all of the financial of payment details related topayment such as amount, payment method details, payment type (e.g.,capture or sale), transaction date, payment gateway that was used, etc.

By contrast, when the payments platform 126 determines (at 834) that thetransformed response was unsuccessful, the payments platform 126 updatesthe payment record, the status of a payment record to indicate that ithas failed, been cancelled and adds a new status field, and publishesthe event notification that indicates that the platform in insynchronization with the payment gateway (e.g., so that a situation doesnot arise where a customer sees a payment, but the merchant does not).

As noted above with reference to FIG. 1, in one implementation, thetechnologies described above with reference to FIGS. 1-8 can be used inconjunction with a cloud computing platform, such as a multitenantdatabase system, that provides applications and services to multipletenants or organizations via the cloud computing platform. One exampleof such a system will now be described below with reference to FIGS.9-12.

FIG. 9 is a schematic block diagram of an example of a multi-tenantcomputing environment in which features of the disclosed embodiments canbe implemented in accordance with the disclosed embodiments. As shown inFIG. 9, an exemplary cloud-based solution may be implemented in thecontext of a multi-tenant system 900 including a server 902 thatsupports applications 928 based upon data 932 from a database 930 thatmay be shared between multiple tenants, organizations, or enterprises,referred to herein as a multi-tenant database. The multi-tenant system900 can be shared by many different organizations, and handles thestorage of, and access to, different metadata, objects, data andapplications across disparate organizations. In one embodiment, themulti-tenant system 900 can be part of a database system, such as amulti-tenant database system.

The multi-tenant system 900 can provide applications and services andstore data for any number of organizations. Each organization is asource of metadata and data associated with that metadata thatcollectively make up an application. In one implementation, the metadatacan include customized content of the organization (e.g., customizationsdone to an instance that define business logic and processes for anorganization). Some non-limiting examples of metadata can include, forexample, customized content that describes a build and functionality ofobjects (or tables), tabs, fields (or columns), permissions, classes,pages (e.g., Apex pages), triggers, controllers, sites, communities,workflow rules, automation rules and processes, etc. Data is associatedwith metadata to create an application. Data can be stored as one ormore objects, where each object holds particular records for anorganization. As such, data can include records (or user content) thatare held by one or more objects.

The multi-tenant system 900 allows users of user systems 940 toestablish a communicative connection to the multi-tenant system 900 overa network 945 such as the Internet or any type of network describedherein. Based on a user's interaction with a user system 940, theapplication platform 910 accesses an organization's data (e.g., recordsheld by an object) and metadata that is stored at one or more databasesystems 930, and provides the user system 940 with access toapplications based on that data and metadata. These applications areexecuted or run in a process space of the application platform 910 willbe described in greater detail below. The user system 940 and variousother user systems (not illustrated) can interact with the applicationsprovided by the multi-tenant system 900. The multi-tenant system 900 isconfigured to handle requests for any user associated with anyorganization that is a tenant of the system. Data and services generatedby the various applications 928 are provided via a network 945 to anynumber of user systems 940, such as desktops, laptops, tablets,smartphones or other client devices, Google Glass™, and any othercomputing device implemented in an automobile, aircraft, television, orother business or consumer electronic device or system, including webclients.

Each application 928 is suitably generated at run-time (or on-demand)using a common application platform 910 that securely provides access tothe data 932 in the database 930 for each of the various tenantorganizations subscribing to the system 900. The application platform910 has access to one or more database systems 930 that storeinformation (e.g., data and metadata) for a number of differentorganizations including user information, organization information,custom information, etc. The database systems 930 can include amulti-tenant database system 930 as described with reference to FIG. 9,as well as other databases or sources of information that are externalto the multi-tenant database system 930 of FIG. 9. In accordance withone non-limiting example, the service cloud 900 is implemented in theform of an on-demand multi-tenant customer relationship management (CRM)system that can support any number of authenticated users for aplurality of tenants.

As used herein, a “tenant” or an “organization” should be understood asreferring to a group of one or more users (typically employees) thatshare access to common subset of the data within the multi-tenantdatabase 930. In this regard, each tenant includes one or more usersand/or groups associated with, authorized by, or otherwise belonging tothat respective tenant. Stated another way, each respective user withinthe multi-tenant system 900 is associated with, assigned to, orotherwise belongs to a particular one of the plurality of enterprisessupported by the system 900.

Each enterprise tenant may represent a company, corporate department,business or legal organization, and/or any other entities that maintaindata for particular sets of users (such as their respective employees orcustomers) within the multi-tenant system 900. Although multiple tenantsmay share access to the server 902 and the database 930, the particulardata and services provided from the server 902 to each tenant can besecurely isolated from those provided to other tenants. The multi-tenantarchitecture therefore allows different sets of users to sharefunctionality and hardware resources without necessarily sharing any ofthe data 932 belonging to or otherwise associated with otherorganizations.

The multi-tenant database 930 may be a repository or other data storagesystem capable of storing and managing the data 932 associated with anynumber of tenant organizations. The database 930 may be implementedusing conventional database server hardware. In various embodiments, thedatabase 930 shares processing hardware 904 with the server 902. Inother embodiments, the database 930 is implemented using separatephysical and/or virtual database server hardware that communicates withthe server 902 to perform the various functions described herein.

In an exemplary embodiment, the database 930 includes a databasemanagement system or other equivalent software capable of determining anoptimal query plan for retrieving and providing a particular subset ofthe data 932 to an instance of application (or virtual application) 928in response to a query initiated or otherwise provided by an application928, as described in greater detail below. The multi-tenant database 930may alternatively be referred to herein as an on-demand database, inthat the database 930 provides (or is available to provide) data atrun-time to on-demand virtual applications 928 generated by theapplication platform 910, as described in greater detail below.

In practice, the data 932 may be organized and formatted in any mannerto support the application platform 910. In various embodiments, thedata 932 is suitably organized into a relatively small number of largedata tables to maintain a semi-amorphous “heap”-type format. The data932 can then be organized as needed for a particular virtual application928. In various embodiments, conventional data relationships areestablished using any number of pivot tables 934 that establishindexing, uniqueness, relationships between entities, and/or otheraspects of conventional database organization as desired. Further datamanipulation and report formatting is generally performed at run-timeusing a variety of metadata constructs. Metadata within a universal datadirectory (UDD) 936, for example, can be used to describe any number offorms, reports, workflows, user access privileges, business logic andother constructs that are common to multiple tenants.

Tenant-specific formatting, functions and other constructs may bemaintained as tenant-specific metadata 938 for each tenant, as desired.Rather than forcing the data 932 into an inflexible global structurethat is common to all tenants and applications, the database 930 isorganized to be relatively amorphous, with the pivot tables 934 and themetadata 938 providing additional structure on an as-needed basis. Tothat end, the application platform 910 suitably uses the pivot tables934 and/or the metadata 938 to generate “virtual” components of thevirtual applications 928 to logically obtain, process, and present therelatively amorphous data 932 from the database 930.

The server 902 may be implemented using one or more actual and/orvirtual computing systems that collectively provide the dynamicapplication platform 910 for generating the virtual applications 928.For example, the server 902 may be implemented using a cluster of actualand/or virtual servers operating in conjunction with each other,typically in association with conventional network communications,cluster management, load balancing and other features as appropriate.The server 902 operates with any sort of conventional processinghardware 904, such as a processor 905, memory 906, input/output features907 and the like. The input/output features 907 generally represent theinterface(s) to networks (e.g., to the network 945, or any other localarea, wide area or other network), mass storage, display devices, dataentry devices and/or the like.

The processor 905 may be implemented using any suitable processingsystem, such as one or more processors, controllers, microprocessors,microcontrollers, processing cores and/or other computing resourcesspread across any number of distributed or integrated systems, includingany number of “cloud-based” or other virtual systems. The memory 906represents any non-transitory short-term or long-term storage or othercomputer-readable media capable of storing programming instructions forexecution on the processor 905, including any sort of random-accessmemory (RAM), read only memory (ROM), flash memory, magnetic or opticalmass storage, and/or the like. The computer-executable programminginstructions, when read and executed by the server 902 and/or processor905, cause the server 902 and/or processor 905 to create, generate, orotherwise facilitate the application platform 910 and/or virtualapplications 928 and perform one or more additional tasks, operations,functions, and/or processes described herein. It should be noted thatthe memory 906 represents one suitable implementation of suchcomputer-readable media, and alternatively or additionally, the server902 could receive and cooperate with external computer-readable mediathat is realized as a portable or mobile component or platform, e.g., aportable hard drive, a USB flash drive, an optical disc, or the like.

The server 902, application platform 910 and database systems 930 can bepart of one backend system. Although not illustrated, the multi-tenantsystem 900 can include other backend systems that can include one ormore servers that work in conjunction with one or more databases and/ordata processing components, and the application platform 910 can accessthe other backend systems.

The multi-tenant system 900 includes one or more user systems 940 thatcan access various applications provided by the application platform910. The application platform 910 is a cloud-based user interface. Theapplication platform 910 can be any sort of software application orother data processing engine that generates the virtual applications 928that provide data and/or services to the user systems 940. In a typicalembodiment, the application platform 910 gains access to processingresources, communications interfaces and other features of theprocessing hardware 904 using any sort of conventional or proprietaryoperating system 908. The virtual applications 928 are typicallygenerated at run-time in response to input received from the usersystems 940. For the illustrated embodiment, the application platform910 includes a bulk data processing engine 912, a query generator 914, asearch engine 916 that provides text indexing and other searchfunctionality, and a runtime application generator 920. Each of thesefeatures may be implemented as a separate process or other module, andmany equivalent embodiments could include different and/or additionalfeatures, components or other modules as desired.

The runtime application generator 920 dynamically builds and executesthe virtual applications 928 in response to specific requests receivedfrom the user systems 940. The virtual applications 928 are typicallyconstructed in accordance with the tenant-specific metadata 938, whichdescribes the particular tables, reports, interfaces and/or otherfeatures of the particular application 928. In various embodiments, eachvirtual application 928 generates dynamic web content that can be servedto a browser or other client program 942 associated with its user system940, as appropriate.

The runtime application generator 920 suitably interacts with the querygenerator 914 to efficiently obtain multi-tenant data 932 from thedatabase 930 as needed in response to input queries initiated orotherwise provided by users of the user systems 940. In a typicalembodiment, the query generator 914 considers the identity of the userrequesting a particular function (along with the user's associatedtenant), and then builds and executes queries to the database 930 usingsystem-wide metadata 936, tenant specific metadata 938, pivot tables934, and/or any other available resources. The query generator 914 inthis example therefore maintains security of the common database 930 byensuring that queries are consistent with access privileges granted tothe user and/or tenant that initiated the request.

With continued reference to FIG. 9, the data processing engine 912performs bulk processing operations on the data 932 such as uploads ordownloads, updates, online transaction processing, and/or the like. Inmany embodiments, less urgent bulk processing of the data 932 can bescheduled to occur as processing resources become available, therebygiving priority to more urgent data processing by the query generator914, the search engine 916, the virtual applications 928, etc.

In exemplary embodiments, the application platform 910 is utilized tocreate and/or generate data-driven virtual applications 928 for thetenants that they support. Such virtual applications 928 may make use ofinterface features such as custom (or tenant-specific) screens 924,standard (or universal) screens 922 or the like. Any number of customand/or standard objects 926 may also be available for integration intotenant-developed virtual applications 928. As used herein, “custom”should be understood as meaning that a respective object or applicationis tenant-specific (e.g., only available to users associated with aparticular tenant in the multi-tenant system) or user-specific (e.g.,only available to a particular subset of users within the multi-tenantsystem), whereas “standard” or “universal” applications or objects areavailable across multiple tenants in the multi-tenant system.

The data 932 associated with each virtual application 928 is provided tothe database 930, as appropriate, and stored until it is requested or isotherwise needed, along with the metadata 938 that describes theparticular features (e.g., reports, tables, functions, objects, fields,formulas, code, etc.) of that particular virtual application 928. Forexample, a virtual application 928 may include a number of objects 926accessible to a tenant, wherein for each object 926 accessible to thetenant, information pertaining to its object type along with values forvarious fields associated with that respective object type aremaintained as metadata 938 in the database 930. In this regard, theobject type defines the structure (e.g., the formatting, functions andother constructs) of each respective object 926 and the various fieldsassociated therewith.

Still referring to FIG. 9, the data and services provided by the server902 can be retrieved using any sort of personal computer, mobiletelephone, tablet or other network-enabled user system 940 on thenetwork 945. In an exemplary embodiment, the user system 940 includes adisplay device, such as a monitor, screen, or another conventionalelectronic display capable of graphically presenting data and/orinformation retrieved from the multi-tenant database 930, as describedin greater detail below.

Typically, the user operates a conventional browser application or otherclient program 942 executed by the user system 940 to contact the server902 via the network 945 using a networking protocol, such as thehypertext transport protocol (HTTP) or the like. The user typicallyauthenticates his or her identity to the server 902 to obtain a sessionidentifier (“SessionID”) that identifies the user in subsequentcommunications with the server 902. When the identified user requestsaccess to a virtual application 928, the runtime application generator920 suitably creates the application at run time based upon the metadata938, as appropriate. However, if a user chooses to manually upload anupdated file (through either the web-based user interface or through anAPI), it will also be shared automatically with all of the users/devicesthat are designated for sharing.

As noted above, the virtual application 928 may contain JAVA®, ActiveX,or other content that can be presented using conventional clientsoftware running on the user system 940; other embodiments may simplyprovide dynamic web or other content that can be presented and viewed bythe user, as desired. As described in greater detail below, the querygenerator 914 suitably obtains the requested subsets of data 932 fromthe database 930 as needed to populate the tables, reports or otherfeatures of the particular virtual application 928.

Objects and Records

In one embodiment, the multi-tenant database system 930 can store datain the form of records and customizations. As used herein, the term“record” can refer to a particular occurrence or instance of a dataobject that is created by a user or administrator of a database serviceand stored in a database system, for example, about a particular (actualor potential) business relationship or project. The data object can havea data structure defined by the database service (a standard object) ordefined by a subscriber (custom object).

An object can refer to a structure used to store data and associatedmetadata along with a globally unique identifier (called an identityfield) that allows for retrieval of the object. In one embodimentimplementing a multi-tenant database, all of the records for the tenantshave an identifier stored in a common table. Each object comprises anumber of fields. A record has data fields that are defined by thestructure of the object (e.g. fields of certain data types andpurposes). An object is analogous to a database table, fields of anobject are analogous to columns of the database table, and a record isanalogous to a row in a database table. Data is stored as records of theobject, which correspond to rows in a database. The terms “object” and“entity” are used interchangeably herein. Objects not only providestructure for storing data, but can also power the interface elementsthat allow users to interact with the data, such as tabs, the layout offields on a page, and lists of related records. Objects can also havebuilt-in support for features such as access management, validation,formulas, triggers, labels, notes and attachments, a track field historyfeature, security features, etc. Attributes of an object are describedwith metadata, making it easy to create and modify records eitherthrough a visual interface or programmatically.

A record can also have custom fields defined by a user. A field can beanother record or include links thereto, thereby providing aparent-child relationship between the records. Customizations caninclude custom objects and fields, Apex Code, Visualforce, Workflow,etc.

Examples of objects include standard objects, custom objects, andexternal objects. A standard object can have a pre-defined datastructure that is defined or specified by a database service or cloudcomputing platform. A standard object can be thought of as a defaultobject. For example, in one embodiment, a standard object includes oneor more pre-defined fields that are common for each organization thatutilizes the cloud computing platform or database system or service.

A few non-limiting examples of different types of standard objects caninclude sales objects (e.g., accounts, contacts, opportunities, leads,campaigns, and other related objects); task and event objects (e.g.,tasks and events and their related objects); support objects (e.g.,cases and solutions and their related objects); salesforce knowledgeobjects (e.g., view and vote statistics, article versions, and otherrelated objects); document, note, attachment objects and their relatedobjects; user, sharing, and permission objects (e.g., users, profiles,and roles); profile and permission objects (e.g., users, profiles,permission sets, and related permission objects); record type objects(e.g., record types and business processes and their related objects);product and schedule objects (e.g., opportunities, products, andschedules); sharing and team selling objects (e.g., account teams,opportunity teams, and sharing objects); customizable forecastingobjects (e.g., includes forecasts and related objects); forecastsobjects (e.g., includes objects for collaborative forecasts); territorymanagement (e.g., territories and related objects associated withterritory management); process objects (e.g., approval processes andrelated objects); content objects (e.g., content and libraries and theirrelated objects); chatter feed objects (e.g., objects related to feeds);badge and reward objects; feedback and performance cycle objects, etc.For example, a record can be for a business partner or potentialbusiness partner (e.g. a client, vendor, distributor, etc.) of the user,and can include an entire company, subsidiaries, or contacts at thecompany. As another example, a record can be a project that the user isworking on, such as an opportunity (e.g. a possible sale) with anexisting partner, or a project that the user is working on.

By contrast, a custom object can have a data structure that is defined,at least in part, by an organization or by a user/subscriber/admin of anorganization. For example, a custom object can be an object that iscustom defined by a user/subscriber/administrator of an organization,and includes one or more custom fields defined by the user or theparticular organization for that custom object. Custom objects arecustom database tables that allow an organization to store informationunique to their organization. Custom objects can extend thefunctionality that standard objects provide.

In one embodiment, an object can be a relationship management entityhaving a record type defined within platform that includes a customerrelationship management (CRM) database system for managing a company'srelationships and interactions with their customers and potentialcustomers. Examples of CRM entities can include, but are not limited to,an account, a case, an opportunity, a lead, a project, a contact, anorder, a pricebook, a product, a solution, a report, a forecast, a user,etc. For instance, an opportunity can correspond to a sales prospect,marketing project, or other business-related activity with respect towhich a user desires to collaborate with others.

An account object may include information about an organization orperson (such as customers, competitors, and partners) involved with aparticular business. Each object may be associated with fields. Forexample, an account object may include fields such as “company”, “zip”,“phone number”, “email address”, etc. A contact object may includecontact information, where each contact may be an individual associatedwith an “account”. A contact object may include fields such as “firstname”, “last name”, “phone number”, “accountID”, etc. The “accountID”field of the “contact” object may be the ID of the account that is theparent of the contact. An opportunities object includes informationabout a sale or a pending deal. An opportunities object may includefields such as “amount”, “accountID”, etc. The “accountID” field of the“opportunity” object may be the ID of the account that is associatedwith the opportunity. Each field may be associated with a field value.For example, a field value for the “zip” field may be “94105”.

External objects are objects that an organization creates that map todata stored outside the organization. External objects are like customobjects, but external object record data is stored outside theorganization. For example, data that's stored on premises in anenterprise resource planning (ERP) system can be accessed as externalobjects in real time via web service callouts, instead of copying thedata into the organization.

The following description is of one example of a system in which thefeatures described above may be implemented. The components of thesystem described below are merely one example and should not beconstrued as limiting. The features described above may be implementedin any other type of computing environment, such as one with multipleservers, one with a single server, a multi-tenant server environment, asingle-tenant server environment, or some combination of the above.

FIG. 10 shows a block diagram of an example of an environment 1010 inwhich an on-demand database service can be used in accordance with someimplementations. The environment 1010 includes user systems 1012, anetwork 1014, a database system 1016 (also referred to herein as a“cloud-based system”), a processor system 1017, an application platform1018, a network interface 1020, tenant database 1022 for storing tenantdata 1023, system database 1024 for storing system data 1025, programcode 1026 for implementing various functions of the system 1016, andprocess space 1028 for executing database system processes andtenant-specific processes, such as running applications as part of anapplication hosting service. In some other implementations, environment1010 may not have all of these components or systems, or may have othercomponents or systems instead of, or in addition to, those listed above.

In some implementations, the environment 1010 is an environment in whichan on-demand database service exists. An on-demand database service,such as that which can be implemented using the system 1016, is aservice that is made available to users outside of the enterprise(s)that own, maintain or provide access to the system 1016. As describedabove, such users generally do not need to be concerned with building ormaintaining the system 1016. Instead, resources provided by the system1016 may be available for such users' use when the users need servicesprovided by the system 1016; that is, on the demand of the users. Someon-demand database services can store information from one or moretenants into tables of a common database image to form a multi-tenantdatabase system (MTS). The term “multi-tenant database system” can referto those systems in which various elements of hardware and software of adatabase system may be shared by one or more customers or tenants. Forexample, a given application server may simultaneously process requestsfor a great number of customers, and a given database table may storerows of data such as feed items for a potentially much greater number ofcustomers. A database image can include one or more database objects. Arelational database management system (RDBMS) or the equivalent canexecute storage and retrieval of information against the databaseobject(s).

Application platform 1018 can be a framework that allows theapplications of system 1016 to execute, such as the hardware or softwareinfrastructure of the system 1016. In some implementations, theapplication platform 1018 enables the creation, management and executionof one or more applications developed by the provider of the on-demanddatabase service, users accessing the on-demand database service viauser systems 1012, or third-party application developers accessing theon-demand database service via user systems 1012.

In some implementations, the system 1016 implements a web-based customerrelationship management (CRM) system. For example, in some suchimplementations, the system 1016 includes application servers configuredto implement and execute CRM software applications as well as providerelated data, code, forms, renderable webpages and documents and otherinformation to and from user systems 1012 and to store to, and retrievefrom, a database system related data, objects, and Webpage content. Insome MTS implementations, data for multiple tenants may be stored in thesame physical database object in tenant database 1022. In some suchimplementations, tenant data is arranged in the storage medium(s) oftenant database 1022 so that data of one tenant is kept logicallyseparate from that of other tenants so that one tenant does not haveaccess to another tenant's data, unless such data is expressly shared.The system 1016 also implements applications other than, or in additionto, a CRM application. For example, the system 1016 can provide tenantaccess to multiple hosted (standard and custom) applications, includinga CRM application. User (or third-party developer) applications, whichmay or may not include CRM, may be supported by the application platform1018. The application platform 1018 manages the creation and storage ofthe applications into one or more database objects and the execution ofthe applications in one or more virtual machines in the process space ofthe system 1016.

According to some implementations, each system 1016 is configured toprovide webpages, forms, applications, data and media content to user(client) systems 1012 to support the access by user systems 1012 astenants of system 1016. As such, system 1016 provides securitymechanisms to keep each tenant's data separate unless the data isshared. If more than one MTS is used, they may be located in closeproximity to one another (for example, in a server farm located in asingle building or campus), or they may be distributed at locationsremote from one another (for example, one or more servers located incity A and one or more servers located in city B). As used herein, eachMTS could include one or more logically or physically connected serversdistributed locally or across one or more geographic locations.Additionally, the term “server” is meant to refer to a computing deviceor system, including processing hardware and process space(s), anassociated storage medium such as a memory device or database, and, insome instances, a database application (for example, OODBMS or RDBMS) asis well known in the art. It should also be understood that “serversystem” and “server” are often used interchangeably herein. Similarly,the database objects described herein can be implemented as part of asingle database, a distributed database, a collection of distributeddatabases, a database with redundant online or offline backups or otherredundancies, etc., and can include a distributed database or storagenetwork and associated processing intelligence.

The network 1014 can be or include any network or combination ofnetworks of systems or devices that communicate with one another. Forexample, the network 1014 can be or include any one or any combinationof a LAN (local area network), WAN (wide area network), telephonenetwork, wireless network, cellular network, point-to-point network,star network, token ring network, hub network, or other appropriateconfiguration. The network 1014 can include a TCP/IP (Transfer ControlProtocol and Internet Protocol) network, such as the global internetworkof networks often referred to as the “Internet” (with a capital “I”).The Internet will be used in many of the examples herein. However, itshould be understood that the networks that the disclosedimplementations can use are not so limited, although TCP/IP is afrequently implemented protocol.

The user systems 1012 can communicate with system 1016 using TCP/IP and,at a higher network level, other common Internet protocols tocommunicate, such as HTTP, FTP, AFS, WAP, etc. In an example where HTTPis used, each user system 1012 can include an HTTP client commonlyreferred to as a “web browser” or simply a “browser” for sending andreceiving HTTP signals to and from an HTTP server of the system 1016.Such an HTTP server can be implemented as the sole network interface1020 between the system 1016 and the network 1014, but other techniquescan be used in addition to or instead of these techniques. In someimplementations, the network interface 1020 between the system 1016 andthe network 1014 includes load sharing functionality, such asround-robin HTTP request distributors to balance loads and distributeincoming HTTP requests evenly over a number of servers. In MTSimplementations, each of the servers can have access to the MTS data;however, other alternative configurations may be used instead.

The user systems 1012 can be implemented as any computing device(s) orother data processing apparatus or systems usable by users to access thedatabase system 1016. For example, any of user systems 1012 can be adesktop computer, a work station, a laptop computer, a tablet computer,a handheld computing device, a mobile cellular phone (for example, a“smartphone”), or any other Wi-Fi-enabled device, wireless accessprotocol (WAP)-enabled device, or other computing device capable ofinterfacing directly or indirectly to the Internet or other network. Theterms “user system” and “computing device” are used interchangeablyherein with one another and with the term “computer.” As describedabove, each user system 1012 typically executes an HTTP client, forexample, a web browsing (or simply “browsing”) program, such as a webbrowser based on the WebKit platform, Microsoft's Internet Explorerbrowser, Netscape's Navigator browser, Opera's browser, Mozilla'sFirefox browser, or a WAP-enabled browser in the case of a cellularphone, PDA or other wireless device, or the like, allowing a user (forexample, a subscriber of on-demand services provided by the system 1016)of the user system 1012 to access, process and view information, pagesand applications available to it from the system 1016 over the network1014.

Each user system 1012 also typically includes one or more user inputdevices, such as a keyboard, a mouse, a trackball, a touch pad, a touchscreen, a pen or stylus or the like, for interacting with a graphicaluser interface (GUI) provided by the browser on a display (for example,a monitor screen, liquid crystal display (LCD), light-emitting diode(LED) display, among other possibilities) of the user system 1012 inconjunction with pages, forms, applications and other informationprovided by the system 1016 or other systems or servers. For example,the user interface device can be used to access data and applicationshosted by system 1016, and to perform searches on stored data, andotherwise allow a user to interact with various GUI pages that may bepresented to a user. As discussed above, implementations are suitablefor use with the Internet, although other networks can be used insteadof or in addition to the Internet, such as an intranet, an extranet, avirtual private network (VPN), a non-TCP/IP based network, any LAN orWAN or the like.

The users of user systems 1012 may differ in their respectivecapacities, and the capacity of a particular user system 1012 can beentirely determined by permissions (permission levels) for the currentuser of such user system. For example, where a salesperson is using aparticular user system 1012 to interact with the system 1016, that usersystem can have the capacities allotted to the salesperson. However,while an administrator is using that user system 1012 to interact withthe system 1016, that user system can have the capacities allotted tothat administrator. Where a hierarchical role model is used, users atone permission level can have access to applications, data, and databaseinformation accessible by a lower permission level user, but may nothave access to certain applications, database information, and dataaccessible by a user at a higher permission level. Thus, different usersgenerally will have different capabilities with regard to accessing andmodifying application and database information, depending on the users'respective security or permission levels (also referred to as“authorizations”).

According to some implementations, each user system 1012 and some or allof its components are operator-configurable using applications, such asa browser, including computer code executed using a central processingunit (CPU) such as an Intel Pentium® processor or the like. Similarly,the system 1016 (and additional instances of an MTS, where more than oneis present) and all of its components can be operator-configurable usingapplication(s) including computer code to run using the processor system1017, which may be implemented to include a CPU, which may include anIntel Pentium® processor or the like, or multiple CPUs.

The system 1016 includes tangible computer-readable media havingnon-transitory instructions stored thereon/in that are executable by orused to program a server or other computing system (or collection ofsuch servers or computing systems) to perform some of the implementationof processes described herein. For example, computer program code 1026can implement instructions for operating and configuring the system 1016to intercommunicate and to process webpages, applications and other dataand media content as described herein. In some implementations, thecomputer code 1026 can be downloadable and stored on a hard disk, butthe entire program code, or portions thereof, also can be stored in anyother volatile or non-volatile memory medium or device as is well known,such as a ROM or RAM, or provided on any media capable of storingprogram code, such as any type of rotating media including floppy disks,optical discs, digital versatile disks (DVD), compact disks (CD),microdrives, and magneto-optical disks, and magnetic or optical cards,nanosystems (including molecular memory ICs), or any other type ofcomputer-readable medium or device suitable for storing instructions ordata. Additionally, the entire program code, or portions thereof, may betransmitted and downloaded from a software source over a transmissionmedium, for example, over the Internet, or from another server, as iswell known, or transmitted over any other existing network connection asis well known (for example, extranet, VPN, LAN, etc.) using anycommunication medium and protocols (for example, TCP/IP, HTTP, HTTPS,Ethernet, etc.) as are well known. It will also be appreciated thatcomputer code for the disclosed implementations can be realized in anyprogramming language that can be executed on a server or other computingsystem such as, for example, C, C++, HTML, any other markup language,JAVA®, JAVASCRIPT®, ActiveX®, any other scripting language, such asVBScript®, and many other programming languages as are well known may beused. (JAVA™ is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc.).

FIG. 11 shows a block diagram of example implementations of elements ofFIG. 10 and example interconnections between these elements according tosome implementations. That is, FIG. 11 also illustrates environment1010, but FIG. 11, various elements of the system 1016 and variousinterconnections between such elements are shown with more specificityaccording to some more specific implementations. Elements from FIG. 10that are also shown in FIG. 11 will use the same reference numbers inFIG. 11 as were used in FIG. 10. Additionally, in FIG. 11, the usersystem 1012 includes a processor system 1112A, a memory system 1112B, aninput system 1112C, and an output system 1112D. The processor system1112A can include any suitable combination of one or more processors.The memory system 1112B can include any suitable combination of one ormore memory devices. The input system 1112C can include any suitablecombination of input devices, such as one or more touchscreeninterfaces, keyboards, mice, trackballs, scanners, cameras, orinterfaces to networks. The output system 1112D can include any suitablecombination of output devices, such as one or more display devices,printers, or interfaces to networks.

In FIG. 11, the network interface 1020 of FIG. 10 is implemented as aset of HTTP application servers 11001-1100N. Each application server1100, also referred to herein as an “app server,” is configured tocommunicate with tenant database 1022 and the tenant data 1123 therein,as well as system database 1024 and the system data 1125 therein, toserve requests received from the user systems 1112. The tenant data 1123can be divided into individual tenant storage spaces 1113, which can bephysically or logically arranged or divided. Within each tenant storagespace 1113, tenant data 1114 and application metadata 1116 can similarlybe allocated for each user. For example, a copy of a user's mostrecently used (MRU) items can be stored to tenant data 1114. Similarly,a copy of MRU items for an entire organization that is a tenant can bestored to tenant storage space 1113.

The process space 1028 includes system process space 1102, individualtenant process spaces 1104 and a tenant management process space 1110.The application platform 1018 includes an application setup mechanism1138 that supports application developers' creation and management ofapplications. Such applications and others can be saved as metadata intotenant database 1022 by save routines 1136 for execution by subscribersas one or more tenant process spaces 1104 managed by tenant managementprocess 1110, for example. Invocations to such applications can be codedusing PL/SOQL 1134, which provides a programming language styleinterface extension to API 1132. A detailed description of some PL/SOQLlanguage implementations is discussed in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No.7,730,478, titled METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR ALLOWING ACCESS TO DEVELOPEDAPPLICATIONS VIA A MULTI-TENANT ON-DEMAND DATABASE SERVICE, by CraigWeissman, issued on Jun. 1, 2010, and hereby incorporated by referencein its entirety and for all purposes. Invocations to applications can bedetected by one or more system processes, which manage retrievingapplication metadata 1116 for the subscriber making the invocation andexecuting the metadata as an application in a virtual machine.

The system 1016 of FIG. 11 also includes a user interface (UI) 1130 andan application programming interface (API) 1132 to system 1016 residentprocesses to users or developers at user systems 1112. In some otherimplementations, the environment 1010 may not have the same elements asthose listed above or may have other elements instead of, or in additionto, those listed above.

Each application server 1100 can be communicably coupled with tenantdatabase 1022 and system database 1024, for example, having access totenant data 1123 and system data 1125, respectively, via a differentnetwork connection. For example, one application server 11001 can becoupled via the network 1014 (for example, the Internet), anotherapplication server 1100N can be coupled via a direct network link, andanother application server (not illustrated) can be coupled by yet adifferent network connection. Transfer Control Protocol and InternetProtocol (TCP/IP) are examples of typical protocols that can be used forcommunicating between application servers 1100 and the system 1016.However, it will be apparent to one skilled in the art that othertransport protocols can be used to optimize the system 1016 depending onthe network interconnections used.

In some implementations, each application server 1100 is configured tohandle requests for any user associated with any organization that is atenant of the system 1016. Because it can be desirable to be able to addand remove application servers 1100 from the server pool at any time andfor various reasons, in some implementations there is no server affinityfor a user or organization to a specific application server 1100. Insome such implementations, an interface system implementing a loadbalancing function (for example, an F5 Big-IP load balancer) iscommunicably coupled between the application servers 1100 and the usersystems 1112 to distribute requests to the application servers 1100. Inone implementation, the load balancer uses a least-connections algorithmto route user requests to the application servers 1100. Other examplesof load balancing algorithms, such as round robin andobserved-response-time, also can be used. For example, in someinstances, three consecutive requests from the same user could hit threedifferent application servers 1100, and three requests from differentusers could hit the same application server 1100. In this manner, by wayof example, system 1016 can be a multi-tenant system in which system1016 handles storage of, and access to, different objects, data andapplications across disparate users and organizations.

In one example storage use case, one tenant can be a company thatemploys a sales force where each salesperson uses system 1016 to manageaspects of their sales. A user can maintain contact data, leads data,customer follow-up data, performance data, goals and progress data,etc., all applicable to that user's personal sales process (for example,in tenant database 1022). In an example of an MTS arrangement, becauseall of the data and the applications to access, view, modify, report,transmit, calculate, etc., can be maintained and accessed by a usersystem 1112 having little more than network access, the user can managehis or her sales efforts and cycles from any of many different usersystems. For example, when a salesperson is visiting a customer and thecustomer has Internet access in their lobby, the salesperson can obtaincritical updates regarding that customer while waiting for the customerto arrive in the lobby.

While each user's data can be stored separately from other users' dataregardless of the employers of each user, some data can beorganization-wide data shared or accessible by several users or all ofthe users for a given organization that is a tenant. Thus, there can besome data structures managed by system 1016 that are allocated at thetenant level while other data structures can be managed at the userlevel. Because an MTS can support multiple tenants including possiblecompetitors, the MTS can have security protocols that keep data,applications, and application use separate. Also, because many tenantsmay opt for access to an MTS rather than maintain their own system,redundancy, up-time, and backup are additional functions that can beimplemented in the MTS. In addition to user-specific data andtenant-specific data, the system 1016 also can maintain system leveldata usable by multiple tenants or other data. Such system level datacan include industry reports, news, postings, and the like that aresharable among tenants.

In some implementations, the user systems 1112 (which also can be clientsystems) communicate with the application servers 1100 to request andupdate system-level and tenant-level data from the system 1016. Suchrequests and updates can involve sending one or more queries to tenantdatabase 1022 or system database 1024. The system 1016 (for example, anapplication server 1100 in the system 1016) can automatically generateone or more SQL statements (for example, one or more SQL queries)designed to access the desired information. System database 1024 cangenerate query plans to access the requested data from the database. Theterm “query plan” generally refers to one or more operations used toaccess information in a database system.

Each database can generally be viewed as a collection of objects, suchas a set of logical tables, containing data fitted into predefined orcustomizable categories. A “table” is one representation of a dataobject, and may be used herein to simplify the conceptual description ofobjects and custom objects according to some implementations. It shouldbe understood that “table” and “object” may be used interchangeablyherein. Each table generally contains one or more data categorieslogically arranged as columns or fields in a viewable schema. Each rowor element of a table can contain an instance of data for each categorydefined by the fields. For example, a CRM database can include a tablethat describes a customer with fields for basic contact information suchas name, address, phone number, fax number, etc. Another table candescribe a purchase order, including fields for information such ascustomer, product, sale price, date, etc. In some MTS implementations,standard entity tables can be provided for use by all tenants. For CRMdatabase applications, such standard entities can include tables forcase, account, contact, lead, and opportunity data objects, eachcontaining pre-defined fields. As used herein, the term “entity” alsomay be used interchangeably with “object” and “table.”

In some MTS implementations, tenants are allowed to create and storecustom objects, or may be allowed to customize standard entities orobjects, for example by creating custom fields for standard objects,including custom index fields. Commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No.7,779,039, titled CUSTOM ENTITIES AND FIELDS IN A MULTI-TENANT DATABASESYSTEM, by Weissman et al., issued on Aug. 17, 2010, and herebyincorporated by reference in its entirety and for all purposes, teachessystems and methods for creating custom objects as well as customizingstandard objects in a multi-tenant database system. In someimplementations, for example, all custom entity data rows are stored ina single multi-tenant physical table, which may contain multiple logicaltables per organization. It is transparent to customers that theirmultiple “tables” are in fact stored in one large table or that theirdata may be stored in the same table as the data of other customers.

FIG. 12 illustrates a diagrammatic representation of a machine in theexemplary form of a computer system 1200 within which a set ofinstructions, for causing the machine to perform any one or more of themethodologies discussed herein, may be executed. The system 1200 may bein the form of a computer system within which a set of instructions, forcausing the machine to perform any one or more of the methodologiesdiscussed herein, may be executed. In alternative embodiments, themachine may be connected (e.g., networked) to other machines in a LAN,an intranet, an extranet, or the Internet. The machine may operate inthe capacity of a user system, a client device, or a server machine inclient-server network environment. The machine may be a personalcomputer (PC), a set-top box (STB), a server, a network router, switchor bridge, or any machine capable of executing a set of instructions(sequential or otherwise) that specify actions to be taken by thatmachine. Further, while only a single machine is illustrated, the term“machine” shall also be taken to include any collection of machines thatindividually or jointly execute a set (or multiple sets) of instructionsto perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein. In oneembodiment, computer system 1200 may represent, for example, elements ofthe cloud computing platform 102 of FIG. 1 (e.g. clients 110, thepayments platform 126 and/or the a multi-tenant database system 120),the payment gateways 140 of FIG. 1, computing systems used by thecustomers 150 of FIG. 1, the third-party application exchange 160 ofFIG. 1, the user systems 940 of FIG. 9, the server system 902 of FIG. 9,or the database system 930 of FIG. 9, etc.

The exemplary computer system 1200 includes a processing device(processor) 1202, a main memory 1204 (e.g., read-only memory (ROM),flash memory, dynamic random access memory (DRAM) such as synchronousDRAM (SDRAM)), a static memory 1206 (e.g., flash memory, static randomaccess memory (SRAM)), and a data storage device 1218, which communicatewith each other via a bus 1230.

Processing device 1202 represents one or more general-purpose processingdevices such as a microprocessor, central processing unit, or the like.More particularly, the processing device 1202 may be a complexinstruction set computing (CISC) microprocessor, reduced instruction setcomputing (RISC) microprocessor, very long instruction word (VLIW)microprocessor, or a processor implementing other instruction sets orprocessors implementing a combination of instruction sets. Theprocessing device 1202 may also be one or more special-purposeprocessing devices such as an application specific integrated circuit(ASIC), a field programmable gate array (FPGA), a digital signalprocessor (DSP), network processor, or the like.

The computer system 1200 may further include a network interface device1208. The computer system 1200 also may include a video display unit1210 (e.g., a liquid crystal display (LCD) or a cathode ray tube (CRT)),an alphanumeric input device 1212 (e.g., a keyboard), a cursor controldevice 1214 (e.g., a mouse), and a signal generation device 1216 (e.g.,a speaker).

The data storage device 1218 may include a computer-readable medium 1228on which is stored one or more sets of instructions 1222 (e.g.,instructions of in-memory buffer service 124) embodying any one or moreof the methodologies or functions described herein. The instructions1222 may also reside, completely or at least partially, within the mainmemory 1204 and/or within processing logic 1226 of the processing device1202 during execution thereof by the computer system 1200, the mainmemory 1204 and the processing device 1202 also constitutingcomputer-readable media. The instructions may further be transmitted orreceived over a network 1220 via the network interface device 1208.

While the computer-readable storage medium 1228 is shown in an exemplaryembodiment to be a single medium, the term “computer-readable storagemedium” should be taken to include a single medium or multiple media(e.g., a centralized or distributed database, and/or associated cachesand servers) that store the one or more sets of instructions. The term“computer-readable storage medium” shall also be taken to include anymedium that is capable of storing, encoding or carrying a set ofinstructions for execution by the machine and that cause the machine toperform any one or more of the methodologies of the present invention.The term “computer-readable storage medium” shall accordingly be takento include, but not be limited to, solid-state memories, optical media,and magnetic media.

Particular embodiments may be implemented in a computer-readable storagemedium (also referred to as a machine-readable storage medium) for useby or in connection with the instruction execution system, apparatus,system, or device. Particular embodiments can be implemented in the formof control logic in software or hardware or a combination of both. Thecontrol logic, when executed by one or more processors, may be operableto perform that which is described in particular embodiments.

A “processor,” “processor system,” or “processing system” includes anysuitable hardware and/or software system, mechanism or component thatprocesses data, signals or other information. A processor can include asystem with a general-purpose central processing unit, multipleprocessing units, dedicated circuitry for achieving functionality, orother systems. Processing need not be limited to a geographic location,or have temporal limitations. For example, a processor can perform itsfunctions in “real time,” “offline,” in a “batch mode,” etc. Portions ofprocessing can be performed at different times and at differentlocations, by different (or the same) processing systems. A computer maybe any processor in communication with a memory. The memory may be anysuitable processor-readable storage medium, such as random-access memory(RAM), read-only memory (ROM), magnetic or optical disk, or othertangible media suitable for storing instructions for execution by theprocessor.

Particular embodiments may be implemented by using a programmed generalpurpose digital computer, by using application specific integratedcircuits, programmable logic devices, field programmable gate arrays,optical, chemical, biological, quantum or nanoengineered systems,components and mechanisms may be used. In general, the functions ofparticular embodiments can be achieved by any means as is known in theart. Distributed, networked systems, components, and/or circuits can beused. Communication, or transfer, of data may be wired, wireless, or byany other means.

It will also be appreciated that one or more of the elements depicted inthe drawings/figures can also be implemented in a more separated orintegrated manner, or even removed or rendered as inoperable in certaincases, as is useful in accordance with a particular application. It isalso within the spirit and scope to implement a program or code that canbe stored in a machine-readable medium to permit a computer to performany of the methods described above.

The preceding description sets forth numerous specific details such asexamples of specific systems, components, methods, and so forth, inorder to provide a good understanding of several embodiments of thepresent invention. It will be apparent to one skilled in the art,however, that at least some embodiments of the present invention may bepracticed without these specific details. In other instances, well-knowncomponents or methods are not described in detail or are presented insimple block diagram format in order to avoid unnecessarily obscuringthe present invention. Thus, the specific details set forth are merelyexemplary. Particular implementations may vary from these exemplarydetails and still be contemplated to be within the scope of the presentinvention.

In the above description, numerous details are set forth. It will beapparent, however, to one of ordinary skill in the art having thebenefit of this disclosure, that embodiments of the invention may bepracticed without these specific details. In some instances, well-knownstructures and devices are shown in block diagram form, rather than indetail, in order to avoid obscuring the description.

Techniques and technologies may be described herein in terms offunctional and/or logical block components, and with reference tosymbolic representations of operations, processing tasks, and functionsthat may be performed by various computing components or devices. Suchoperations, tasks, and functions are sometimes referred to as beingcomputer-executed, computerized, software-implemented, orcomputer-implemented. In this regard, it should be appreciated that thevarious block components shown in the figures may be realized by anynumber of hardware, software, and/or firmware components configured toperform the specified functions. For example, an embodiment of a systemor a component may employ various integrated circuit components, e.g.,memory elements, digital signal processing elements, logic elements,look-up tables, or the like, which may carry out a variety of functionsunder the control of one or more microprocessors or other controldevices.

Some portions of the detailed description are presented in terms ofalgorithms and symbolic representations of operations on data bitswithin a computer memory. These algorithmic descriptions andrepresentations are the means used by those skilled in the dataprocessing arts to most effectively convey the substance of their workto others skilled in the art. An algorithm is here, and generally,conceived to be a self-consistent sequence of steps leading to a desiredresult. The steps are those requiring physical manipulations of physicalquantities. Usually, though not necessarily, these quantities take theform of electrical or magnetic signals capable of being stored,transferred, combined, compared, and otherwise manipulated. It hasproven convenient at times, principally for reasons of common usage, torefer to these signals as bits, values, elements, symbols, characters,terms, numbers, or the like.

It should be borne in mind, however, that all of these and similar termsare to be associated with the appropriate physical quantities and aremerely convenient labels applied to these quantities. Unlessspecifically stated otherwise as apparent from the above discussion, itis appreciated that throughout the description, discussions utilizingterms such as “processing,” “determining,” “analyzing,” “identifying,”“adding,” “displaying,” “generating,” “querying,” “creating,”“selecting” or the like, refer to the actions and processes of acomputer system, or similar electronic computing device, thatmanipulates and transforms data represented as physical (e.g.,electronic) quantities within the computer system's registers andmemories into other data similarly represented as physical quantitieswithin the computer system memories or registers or other suchinformation storage, transmission or display devices.

Embodiments of the invention also relate to an apparatus for performingthe operations herein. This apparatus may be specially constructed forthe required purposes, or it may comprise a general purpose computerselectively activated or reconfigured by a computer program stored inthe computer. Such a computer program may be stored in a computerreadable storage medium, such as, but not limited to, any type of diskincluding floppy disks, optical disks, CD-ROMs, and magnetic-opticaldisks, read-only memories (ROMs), random access memories (RAMs), EPROMs,EEPROMs, magnetic or optical cards, or any type of media suitable forstoring electronic instructions.

The algorithms and displays presented herein are not inherently relatedto any particular computer or other apparatus. Various general purposesystems may be used with programs in accordance with the teachingsherein, or it may prove convenient to construct a more specializedapparatus to perform the required method steps. The required structurefor a variety of these systems will appear from the description below.In addition, the present invention is not described with reference toany particular programming language. It will be appreciated that avariety of programming languages may be used to implement the teachingsof the invention as described herein.

Any suitable programming language can be used to implement the routinesof particular embodiments including C, C++, JAVA®, assembly language,etc. Different programming techniques can be employed such as proceduralor object oriented. The routines can execute on a single processingdevice or multiple processors. Although the steps, operations, orcomputations may be presented in a specific order, this order may bechanged in different particular embodiments. In some particularembodiments, multiple steps shown as sequential in this specificationcan be performed at the same time.

As used in the description herein and throughout the claims that follow,“a”, “an”, and “the” includes plural references unless the contextclearly dictates otherwise. Also, as used in the description herein andthroughout the claims that follow, the meaning of “in” includes “in” and“on” unless the context clearly dictates otherwise.

The foregoing detailed description is merely illustrative in nature andis not intended to limit the embodiments of the subject matter or theapplication and uses of such embodiments. As used herein, the word“exemplary” means “serving as an example, instance, or illustration.”Any implementation described herein as exemplary is not necessarily tobe construed as preferred or advantageous over other implementations.Furthermore, there is no intention to be bound by any expressed orimplied theory presented in the preceding technical field, background,or detailed description.

While at least one exemplary embodiment has been presented in theforegoing detailed description, it should be appreciated that a vastnumber of variations exist. It should also be appreciated that theexemplary embodiment or embodiments described herein are not intended tolimit the scope, applicability, or configuration of the claimed subjectmatter in any way. Rather, the foregoing detailed description willprovide those skilled in the art with a convenient road map forimplementing the described embodiment or embodiments. It should beunderstood that various changes can be made in the function andarrangement of elements without departing from the scope defined by theclaims, which includes known equivalents and foreseeable equivalents atthe time of filing this patent application.

What is claimed is:
 1. A cloud-based computing system, comprising: aplurality of payment gateways comprising a particular payment gateway,wherein each payment gateway is an application service provider thatprovides a payment gateway adapter configured for different paymentgateway functionality, and wherein the particular payment gatewayprovides a particular payment gateway adapter; a cloud computingplatform, comprising: a multitenant database system that is configurableto provide applications and services to a plurality of clients, whereineach client is a tenant or organization of the cloud computing platformthat transacts business with one or more customers via a paymentgateway; and a payments platform module having a pluggable architecturefor integrating each of the payment gateway adapters of the plurality ofpayment gateways with the cloud computing platform so that the clientsand customers of clients are able to perform payment transactions usingthe payment gateways via the payments platform module of the cloudcomputing platform.
 2. The cloud-based computing system according toclaim 1, further comprising: a third-party application exchangeconfigured to store a plurality of payment gateway adapters each beingcustomized for a particular one of the payment gateways, wherein each ofthe payment gateway adapters are pluggable into the payments platformmodule so that each of the clients can selectively integrate whichpayment gateway adapters to implement, wherein the payment gatewayadapters include a particular payment gateway adapter.
 3. Thecloud-based computing system according to claim 2, wherein the paymentgateway adapters are published via the third-party application exchangeby their corresponding payment gateway as a managed package that isaccessible to the clients so that clients can selectively install andinstantiate different payment gateway adapters for each particularpayment gateway that is selected for integration by that client.
 4. Thecloud-based computing system according to claim 2, wherein each of thepayment gateway adapters is written in a custom programming language ofthe cloud-based computing platform using standardized applicationprogramming interfaces provided by the payments platform module of thecloud computing platform such that the payment gateway adapters arepluggable into payments platform module.
 5. The cloud-based computingsystem according to claim 2, wherein each of the payment gatewayadapters, when executed by the hardware-based processing system, isconfigurable to cause: receiving and processing payment transactionrequests from clients by calling a particular payment gateway adapterspecified in each the payment transaction request; and processing andreturning payment transaction responses that originate from one of thepayment gateways.
 6. The cloud-based computing system according to claim2, wherein each of the payment gateway adapters are selectable by any ofthe clients for integration with the payments platform module to allowthe clients to select any of the payment gateways to execute paymenttransactions with their customers through the payments platform moduleusing the particular payment gateways that are selected.
 7. Thecloud-based computing system according to claim 2, wherein the paymentsplatform module exposes: payment gateway client application programminginterfaces to clients to call from flows, process builders, customercode, wherein the payment gateway client application programminginterfaces are a unified set of application programming interfaces thatclients can use to interact with the various different payment gateways;and payment gateway adapter application programming interfaces of thepayment gateway adapters for each of payment gateways, wherein thepayment gateway adapter application programming interfaces are universalfor all clients and allow developers of the payment gateways to buildpayment gateway adapters such that each payment gateway can use thepayment gateway client application programming interfaces to integratewith the payments platform module and implement payment gateway adapterapplication programming interfaces, wherein the payment gateway adapterapplication programming interfaces are written in a custom programminglanguage of the cloud-based computing platform, and wherein each of theclients can use the payment gateway client application programminginterfaces to consume the payment gateway adapter applicationprogramming interfaces.
 8. The cloud-based computing system according toclaim 7, wherein the payments platform module comprises: a paymentgateway integration layer that allows the payments platform module tointeract with the payment gateways by exposing payment gateway adapterapplication programming interfaces to interact with each of the paymentgateways, wherein the payment gateway adapter application programminginterfaces serve as bridge for interaction between the payment gatewayintegration layer and the payment gateway adapters.
 9. The cloud-basedcomputing system according to claim 7, wherein the payment gatewayintegration layer coordinates calls between the payments platform moduleand the payment gateways, wherein the payment gateway integration layer,when executed by the hardware-based processing system, is configurableto cause: receiving and processing payment transaction requests fromclients by calling a particular payment gateway adapter specified ineach the payment transaction request, wherein each payment transactionrequest comprises information regarding which payment gateway adapter touse so that payments platform module knows which payment gateway adapterto call and invoke; and processing and returning payment transactionresponses that have been translated by and forwarded from the paymentgateway adapters, wherein the payment transaction responses originatefrom one of the payment gateways.
 10. The cloud-based computing systemaccording to claim 7, wherein the payment gateway integration layer,when executed by the hardware-based processing system, is configurableto cause: initializing and loading, based on a configuration specifiedin a payment transaction request, a specific environment for theparticular payment gateway adapter; converting the payment transactionrequest to a specific format for the particular payment gateway adapter;calling and executing the particular payment gateway adapter; receivingand converting a payment transaction response that is specific to theparticular payment gateway into a gateway payment transaction responsethat is specific to the payments platform module; and returning thegateway payment transaction response.
 11. The cloud-based computingsystem according to claim 7, wherein the payments platform module, whenexecuted by the hardware-based processing system, is configurable tocause: executing the particular payment gateway adapter that has beenselected by a particular client to implement a set of payment gatewayadapter application programming interfaces so that applicationprogramming interfaces of the particular payment gateway can betranslated into the payment gateway client application programminginterfaces the cloud computing platform, wherein the particular paymentgateway adapter translates application programming interfaces of aparticular payment gateway into the application programming interfacesof the cloud computing platform so that they are compatible.
 12. Thecloud-based computing system according to claim 1, wherein the paymenttransactions supported by the payments platform module comprise one ormore of: an authorization transaction that includes an authorizationrequest and an authorization response, an authorization reversaltransaction that includes an authorization reversal request and anauthorization reversal response, a capture transaction that includes acapture request and a capture response, a sale transaction that includesa sale request and a sale response, a void transaction that includes avoid request and a void response, and a refund transaction that includesa refund request and a refund response.
 13. A cloud-based computingsystem that includes a multitenant database system that hosts aplurality of clients that each transact business with one or morecustomers via a payment gateway, the cloud-based computing systemcomprising at least one hardware-based processor and memory, wherein thememory comprises processor-executable instructions encoded on anon-transient processor-readable media, wherein the processor-executableinstructions, when executed by the processor, are configurable to cause:selecting a particular payment gateway adapter for a particular paymentgateway, wherein the particular payment gateway is one of a plurality ofpayment gateways, wherein each payment gateway is an application serviceprovider that provides a payment gateway adapter configured fordifferent payment gateway functionality; and executing, at a paymentsplatform module of a cloud computing platform, particular paymentgateway adapter so that a client and one or more customers of client areable to perform payment transactions using the particular paymentgateway via the payments platform of the cloud computing platform. 14.The cloud-based computing system according to claim 13, wherein theprocessor-executable instructions, when executed by the processor, arefurther configurable to cause: storing, at a third-party applicationexchange, a plurality of payment gateway adapters each being customizedfor a particular one of the payment gateways, wherein each of thepayment gateway adapters are pluggable into the payments platform moduleso that each of the clients can selectively integrate which paymentgateway adapters to implement, wherein the payment gateway adaptersinclude the particular payment gateway adapter, and wherein the paymentsplatform module has a pluggable architecture for integrating each of thepayment gateway adapters with the cloud computing platform so that theclients and customers of clients are able to perform paymenttransactions using the payment gateways via the payments platform. 15.The cloud-based computing system according to claim 14, wherein thepayment gateway adapters are published via the third-party applicationexchange by their corresponding payment gateway as a managed packagethat is accessible to the clients so that clients can selectivelyinstall and instantiate different payment gateway adapters for eachparticular payment gateway that is selected for integration by thatclient, and wherein each of the payment gateway adapters is written in acustom programming language of the cloud-based computing platform usingstandardized application programming interfaces provided by the paymentsplatform module of the cloud computing platform such that the paymentgateway adapters are pluggable into payments platform module.
 16. Thecloud-based computing system according to claim 14, wherein the paymentsplatform module exposes: payment gateway client application programminginterfaces to clients to call from flows, process builders, customercode, wherein the payment gateway client application programminginterfaces are a unified set of application programming interfaces thatclients can use to interact with the various different payment gateways;and payment gateway adapter application programming interfaces of thepayment gateway adapters for each of payment gateways, wherein thepayment gateway adapter application programming interfaces are universalfor all clients and allow developers of the payment gateways to buildpayment gateway adapters such that each payment gateway can use thepayment gateway client application programming interfaces to integratewith the payments platform module and implement payment gateway adapterapplication programming interfaces, wherein the payment gateway adapterapplication programming interfaces are written in a custom programminglanguage of the cloud-based computing platform, and wherein each of theclients can use the payment gateway client application programminginterfaces to consume the payment gateway adapter applicationprogramming interfaces, and wherein the payments platform modulecomprises: a payment gateway integration layer that allows the paymentsplatform module to interact with the payment gateways by exposingpayment gateway adapter application programming interfaces to interactwith each of the payment gateways, wherein the payment gateway adapterapplication programming interfaces serve as bridge for interactionbetween the payment gateway integration layer and the payment gatewayadapters.
 17. The cloud-based computing system according to claim 16,wherein each of the payment gateway adapters are selectable by any ofthe clients for integration with the payments platform module to allowthe clients to select any of the payment gateways to execute paymenttransactions with their customers through the payments platform moduleusing the particular payment gateways that are selected, and wherein theprocessor-executable instructions, when executed by the processor, arefurther configurable to cause: receiving and processing paymenttransaction requests from clients by calling a particular paymentgateway adapter specified in each the payment transaction request; andprocessing and returning payment transaction responses that originatefrom one of the payment gateways.
 18. The cloud-based computing systemaccording to claim 16, wherein the payment gateway integration layercoordinates calls between the payments platform module and the paymentgateways, wherein the payment gateway integration layer, when executedby the hardware-based processing system, is configurable to cause:receiving and processing payment transaction requests from clients bycalling a particular payment gateway adapter specified in each thepayment transaction request, wherein each payment transaction requestcomprises information regarding which payment gateway adapter to use sothat payments platform module knows which payment gateway adapter tocall and invoke; and processing and returning payment transactionresponses that have been translated by and forwarded from the paymentgateway adapters, wherein the payment transaction responses originatefrom one of the payment gateways.
 19. The cloud-based computing systemaccording to claim 16, wherein the payment gateway integration layer,when executed by the hardware-based processing system, is configurableto cause: initializing and loading, based on a configuration specifiedin a payment transaction request, a specific environment for theparticular payment gateway adapter; converting the payment transactionrequest to a specific format for the particular payment gateway adapter;calling and executing the particular payment gateway adapter; receivingand converting a payment transaction response that is specific to theparticular payment gateway into a gateway payment transaction responsethat is specific to the payments platform; and returning the gatewaypayment transaction response.
 20. The cloud-based computing systemaccording to claim 16, wherein the payments platform module, whenexecuted by the hardware-based processing system, is configurable tocause: executing the particular payment gateway adapter that has beenselected by a particular client to implement a set of payment gatewayadapter application programming interfaces so that applicationprogramming interfaces of the particular payment gateway can betranslated into the payment gateway client application programminginterfaces the cloud computing platform, wherein the particular paymentgateway adapter translates application programming interfaces of aparticular payment gateway into the application programming interfacesof the cloud computing platform so that they are compatible.